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HISTORY  OF  ELECTRICITY 


(THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN    ELECTRICITY) 


FROM  ANTIQUITY  TO  THE  DAYS  OF  BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN 


BY 

PARK  BENJAMIN,  Ph.D.,  L.L.B. 

Mem.  Am.  Inst.  Elec.  Engrs.  ;   Assoc,  Mem.  Soc.  Naval  Architects  and  Marine 

Engrs. ;  Foreign  Member  Br.  Inst.  of  Patent  Agents  ;  Editor-in-Chief 

Appleton  s  Cyclopaedia  of  Applied  Mechanics  and  Modern 

Mechanism  ;  A  uthor  of  The  Age  of  Electricitv 

The  Voltaic  Cell,  etc.^  etc. 


NEW  YORK 

JOHN    WILEY    &    SONS 

53  East  Tenth  Street 

1898 


COPYRIGHT,  1895. 
BY  PARK  BENJAMIN 

All  rights  reserved. 


Hraimworth,  Munn  and  Barber, 

Printers  and  Binders, 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


PREFACE. 


IN  this  work  I  attempt  to  show  how  there  came  into  the 
world  the  knowledge  of  the  natural  force,  which  we  call 
electricity ;  a  force  which,  within  the  memory  of  many 
now  living,  has  found  its  most  important  applications  to 
the  needs  of  mankind,  and  which  exhibits  a  promise  and 
potency  of  future  benefit,  the  full  extent  of  which  no  one 
can  safely  venture  to  predict. 

The  research  has  taken  many  years,  has  necessitated  the 
gathering  of  a  large  collection  of  ancient,  and  now  ex- 
ceedingly scarce,  writings,  not  commonly  found  even  in 
great  libraries,  and  the  sifting  of  an  immense  mass  of 
recorded  facts  and  theories,  often  arising  in  fields  far  re- 
moved from  those  in  which  it  might  naturally  be  supposed 
the  requisite  data  would  be  discovered.  The  Greek  and 
Roman  classics,  the  results  of  modern  investigation  into 
the  old  civilizations  of  Phoenicia,  Egypt  and  even  of 
people  of  prehistoric  epochs,  the  Norse  histories,  the  an- 
cient writings  of  the  Chinese  and  Arabs,  the  treatises  of 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  the  works  of  mediaeval  monks, 
magicians,  cosmographers  and  navigators,  the  early  poetry 
of  modern  France  and  Italy  ;  these,  mentioned  at  random, 
are  some  of  the  sources  which  have  been  drawn  upon, 
together  with  the  records  of  the  experiments  and  discoveries 
of  the  natural  philosophers  of  all  ages.  I  have  made  it  a 
rule  to  note  the  original  founts  wherever  it  seemed  to  me 
that  such  references  would  be  of  benefit  to  others  desiring 
to  verify  facts  or  to  go  over  the  same  ground,  and  as  pro- 
viding a  useful  bibliography  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  I 
have  endeavored  to  avoid  a  multiplicity  of  annotations 

(3) 


207110 


4  PREFACE. 

relative  to  immaterial  points,  which  impose  only  needless 
labor  and  uncertainty  upon  the  student. 

Above  all  things,  I  have  sought  to  write  a  straight, 
plain,  simple,  and,  I  hope,  fairly  logical  and  interesting 
story.  I  have  rigidly  excluded  technicalities  and  scien- 
tific demonstrations,  which,  however  interesting  to  the 
professional  electrician,  are  as  Greek  to  the  general  reader  ; 
for  I  address  this  no  more  to  the  wise  men  of  the  wires 
and  the  dynamos  and  the  batteries,  than  to  the  great  pub- 
lic whom  we  all  serve,  and  for  whose  good  we  all  labor. 
Popular  science,  so  called,  is  too  often  dilute  science. 
Scientific  discussions  of  a  didactic  or  abstract  nature,  or 
involving  a  Babylonish  terminology,  and  requiring  minds 
trained  to  understand  them,  cannot  be  rendered  any  easier 
to  the  mental  digestion  of  intellects  engrossed  in  other 
departments  of  the  world's  work,  and,  hence,  not  so  edu- 
cated, by  mechanically  mixing  them  with  the  water  of  an 
engaging  rhetoric.  The  facts  and  the  arguments  based  on 
them  must  be  digested  and  brought  into  true  solution,  so 
that  the  food  offered  will  be  easily  assimilable ;  and  that  is 
what  I  have  tried  here  to  do. 

Perhaps  this  work  may  usefully  tend  to  show  that  elec- 
tricity, at  the  present  time,  is  not  uin  its  infancy."  It 
has  undoubtedly  a  vast  amount  of  work  yet  to  do,  and — I 
am  patriotic  enough  to  believe  at  the  hands  of  our  Amer- 
ican inventors,  first  of  all — will  yet  accomplish  things  un- 
dreamt of  in  our  philosophy  ;  but  it  will  do  this  not  with 
the  feeble  uncertainty  of  the  nursling,  but  with  the  vigor 
and  might  of  maturity.  Moreover,  although  in  ancient 
days  electricity,  in  common  with  all  other  natural  mani- 
festations, was  regarded  as  a  mystery,  none  the  less  the 
knowledge  of  it,  as  these  pages  seek  to  prove,  forced  its 
way  through  the  clouds  of  ignorance  and  superstition  with 
the  unerring  directness  of  a  projectile  driven  through  the 
mist  from  a  modern  gun.  Electricity  is  not  now  occult,  it 
is  not  mystic,  it  is  not  magic,  its  workings  are  no  more 
wonderful  than  are  the  rise  and  fall  of  the  tides ;  in  fact,  it 


PREFACE.  5 

may  be  safely  said,  that  we  know  more  about  its  laws  and 
their  consequences  than  we  do  about  those  which  deter- 
mine the  fall  of  a  stone  to  the  ground. 

I  end  this  essay — which  has  been  more  of  pleasure  than 
of  toil — fully  conscious  of  the  errors  and  inconsistencies 
which  must  be  in  it.  At  every  turn  there  have  been  tan- 
gled skeins  to  unravel,  whereof  the  true  clews  have,  no 
doubt,  often  been  missed  ;  diverging  roads,  where  one 
selects  a  path  never  without  misgivings.  But  with  all 
due  submission,  I  venture  to  believe  that  a  faithful  effort, 
even  if  misdirected,  is  better  than  none  at  all,  although  in 
that  consciousness  may  well  lie  the  only  justification  for 
this  book. 

PARK  BENJAMIN. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction n 

CHAPTER  I. 

Ancient  sources  of  amber 15 

Amber  legends 16 

The  Syrian  women  and  their  amber  spindles 17 

The  lodestone 19 

Lodestone  legends 22 

Greek  knowledge  of  the  lodestone  and  the  Samothracian  rings.    .    .  23 

The  Magnetes 26 

Egyptian  knowledge  of  the  lodestone 28 

Magnetic  knowledge  of  the  Hebrews 29 

CHAPTER  II. 

The  opening  of  the  Egyptian  ports 30 

Greek  Nature-worship  . 31 

Thales  of  Miletus  and  the  beginning  of  Greek  philosophy 32 

The  Magnet-soul 33 

Diogenes  Laertius  on  Thales 34 

Aristotle  and  the  foreshadowing  of  the  inductive  method 38 

Theophrastus,  and  the  first  physical  description  of  the  amber  effect  .  39 

The  mythical  Lyncurium 41 

The  University  of  Alexandria 44 

Legends  of  magnetic  suspension — Mahomet's  coffin 45 

Lucretius'  De  Natura  Rerum  and  its  description  of  magnetic  effects  .  47 

Ancient  medical  uses  of  amber 52 

CHAPTER  III. 

The  polarity  of  the  magnet ,    ,    .    ,   .  53 

Unknown  to  ancient  Greeks 54 

Or  to  ancient  Phoenician  navigators 55 

The  Betulae 56 

No  knowledge  of  polarity  among  ancient  Egyptians 57 

Or  among  the  Etruscans 59 

Polarity  possibly  known  to  the  prehistoric  Nomad  races 61 

Relations  of  Akkadians  and  Chinese 63 

Ancient  China  and  Chinese  chronology 64 

The  Chinese  south-pointing  carts 67 

(vi) 


CONTENTS.  Vli 


Ancient  Chinese  knowledge  of  amber  and  of  the  geomancer's  Com- 
pass   75 

The  Chinese  not  natural  navigators 77 

Nor  reliable  astronomers 79 

Nor  competent  inventors 80 

The  Mariner's  Compass  probably  not  of  Chinese  origin 85 

CHAPTER  IV. 

The  Dark  Ages  and  the  rise  of  Scholasticism 86 

First  distinction  between  magnetic  and  electric  effects  drawn  by  St. 

Augustine 87 

Patristic  references  to  the  lodestone  and  amber 90 

Old  medical  uses  of  the  lodestone 93 

Claudian's  Idyl 93 

The  Fables  of  the  Magnetic  Rocks 96 

Ancient  Arab  navigation 102 

The  Compass  not  used  in  early  voyages  on  the  Indian  Ocean  ....  103 

Nor  by  the  Spanish  Saracens ic8 

Nor  on  Spanish  ships  until  1403 in 

CHAPTER  V. 

The  Northmen  and  their  early  voyages 112 

Physical  science  among  the  Anglo-Saxons 115 

The  Norman  invasion  and  the  poem  of  William  Appulus  of  Amalfi  .  116 

Scholastic  philosophy 118 

Alexander  Neckam 120 

His  treatise  de  Natura  Rerum 122 

The  doctrine  of  similitudes ,    .    .    .    .  124 

And  of  virtues 125 

Applied  to  the  lodestone 127 

The  first  European  description  of  the  Mariner's  Compass 129 

And  the  remarkable  magnetic  discoveries  preceding 131 

The  Compass  points 133 

Gottlaud,  the  great  nautical  rendezvous 134 

Wisbuy  and  its  laws 135 

The  Finns  and  Lapps 137 

Their  sorcery  and  relationship  to  Chinese 139 

And  possible  ancient  knowledge  of  Compass 141 

The  garlic  myth 142 

The  punishment  for  tampering  with  the  Compass 144 

The  Compass  possibly  of  Finn  origin  and  emanating  from  Wisbuy  .  145 

CHAPTER  VI. 

Thirteenth  century  thought 148 

William  the  Clerk  on  the  Compass 149 

The  Bible  of  Guyot  de  Provins 152 


viii  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

And  other  mediaeval  poems  referring  to  magnetic  polarity 154 

The  spurious  treatise  of  Aristotle 157 

Mediaeval  lodestoue  myths  and  fables 159 

Roger  Bacon  and  his  discoveries 160 

Ancient  conceptions  of  the  universe 163 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Peter  Peregrinus 165 

His  perpetual  motion 167 

His  marvelous  magnetic  discoveries 169 

His  development  of  the  Mariner's  Compass 184 

Flavio  Gioja  and  his  Compass  card 187 

Plagiarists  of  Peregrinus 191 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  revival  of  literature  in  Europe 193 

Henry  the  Navigator  and  Portuguese  voyages 194 

Christopher  Columbus  and  his  magnetic  discoveries 196 

Attempts  to  account  for  Compass  variation  by  the  Magnetic  Rocks  .  202 

The  voyages  of  Vasco  da  Gama  and  Magellan 205 

Peregrinus'  disclosure  of  the  magnetic  field  of  force 207 

Hartmann  partly  recognizes  Dip  of  the  Compass  needle 209 

Norman's  discovery  and  explanation  of  Dip 211 

Magnetic  deceptions  of  the  period 219 

Paracelsus  and  his  magnetic  nostrums 220 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Fra  Paolo  (Pietro  Sarpi) 224 

His  treatises  on  the  magnet .  225 

Cesare  observes  magnetism  by  earth's  induction 227 

The  Jesuits  dispute  Sarpi's  discoveries 228 

John  Baptista  Porta 230 

His  Society 231 

His  relations  to  Sarpi 232 

His  treatise  on  natural  magic  and  the  magnetic  discoveries  therein 

recorded 234 

And  especially  the  magnetic  field  of  force 235 

And  telegraphic  communication  by  magnets 239 

Jerome  Fracastorio 241 

Jerome  Cardan 243 

And  his  differentiation  of  magnetic  and  amber  effects 249 

The  physicians  as  physicists 255 

CHAPTER  X. 

William  Gilbert 258 

The  object  of  his  work 268 


CONTENTS.  IX 

PAGE 

His  errors 274 

His  mode  of  thought 275 

His  Terrella  and  his  magnetic  theories 277 

His  magnetic  discoveries 288 

The  inception  of  his  study  of  electricity 294 

The  discovery  of  the  Electrics 299 

Gilbert's  electrical  experiments 303 

His  electrical  theory ^ 307 

His  electrical  discoveries  recapitulated 313 

CHAPTER  XL 

Gilbert's  treatises 315 

Francis  Bacon  and  his  suppression  of  Gilbert's  later  work 318 

Bacon's  criticisms  on  Gilbert * 321 

Bacon's  studies  in  magnetism  and  electricity 324 

CHAPTER  XII. 

Physical  science  in  England  in  time  of  James  I   .   .   .    . 332 

The  great  Universities ...  333 

William  Barlowe  and  Mark  Ridley,   and  the  controversy  between 

them .336 

Physical  Science  in  Italy.   .    , 341 

Galileo  and  his  indebtedness  to  Gilbert 344 

Galileo's  magnetic  researches 347 

The  electric  discoveries  of  Nicolaus  Cabaeus 349 

The  magnetic  and  electric  theories  of  Rene*  Descartes 356 

The  amber  and  the  magnet  in  English  literature 367 

The  Rosicrucians  and  Van  Helmont 372 

Sir  Kenelm  Digby,  and  the  rise  of  physical  science  in  England  .    .    .  377 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,  destroyer  of  errors  .    .   .    , 380 

Some  early  notions  of  telegraphy 382 

Otto  von  Guericke 389 

His  theory  of  virtues 392 

His  extraordinary   electrical    discoveries    made  with    the  sulphur 

globe 396 

CHAPTER  XIII. 

The  founding  of  the  English  Royal  Society 404 

Science  at  the  Court  of  Charles  II 406 

Robert  Boyle 414 

His  philosophy 416 

His  electrical  discoveries 420 

Physical  observations  in  America,  and  Madam  Sewall's  sparkling 

skirt 425 

Robert  Hooke 426 

Isaac  Newton  and  the  reduction  of  electricity  under  the  reign  of  law.  435 

Halley's  magnetic  theories 447 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  intellectual  rise  in  electricity  is  worthy  of  histori- 
cal investigation,  not  merely  because  of  the  material 
results,  actual  and  potential,  which  have  come  from  it, 
but  because  it  shows  clearly  anew  the  marvellous  power 
of  the  human  mind  as  an  instrument  of  discovery,  capable 
of  correcting  its  own  errors.  Beginning  with  a  single 
phenomenon,  afterwards  including  effects  all,  for  long 
periods,  seemingly  fortuitous  and  uncorrelated,  this  rise 
has  involved  questions  of  an  interest  second  only  to  that 
which  mankind  has  yielded  to  the  great  issues  of  life  and 
eternity;  questions  which  challenged  the  human  under- 
standing and  compelled  it  to  measure  itself  against  them. 
From  one  fact  it  came  to  include  many  facts,  from  one 
conception  grew  many  conceptions,  coincidently  with  the 
increase  in  human  learning,  the  broadening  of  human 
thought,  and  the  development  of  human  intelligence. 

The  initial  idea — the  germ — found  its  lodgment  in 
some  brain  existing  at  an  epoch  far  beyond  the  limits  of 
history.  The  discovery  of  amber  in  the  ancient  lake 
dwellings  of  Europe  suggests  the  possible  perception  of  it 
by  pre-historic  man.  The  accidental  rubbing  against  the 
skins  with  which  he  clothed  himself  may  have  caused  an 
attraction  by  the  resin,  thus  electrified,  of  the  light  fur  in 
sufficiently  marked  degree  to  arrest  his  attention.  Be- 
tween such  a  mere  observation  of  the  fact,  however,  and 
the  making  of  any  deduction  from  it,  vast  periods  may 
have  elapsed;  but  there  came  a  time  at  last,  when  the 
amber  was  looked  upon  as  a  strange  inanimate  substance 
which  could  influence  or  even  draw  to  itself  other  things; 
and  this  by  its  own  apparent  capacity,  and  not  through 

(12) 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

any  mechanical  bond  or  connection  extending  from  it  to 
them;  when  it  was  recognized,  in  brief,  that  nature  held  a 
lifeless  thing  showing  an  attribute  of  life. 

This  was  more  than  a  mere  impression.  It  was  an  en- 
igma demanding  resolution,  and  thus  endowed  with  inher- 
ent and  eternal  vitality. 

At  some  other  time,  perhaps  not  until  after  the  advent 
of  an  Iron  Age,  a  similar  power  to  that  of  the  amber  was 
seen  in  the  attraction  of  the  lodestone  for  iron.  Because 
of  this  similitude  the  ancients  somewhat  hazily  imagined 
both  effects  to  be  essentially  one.  Progress  in  discovery 
concerning  either  was  therefore  progress  in  knowledge 
concerning  both.  This  is  also  true  from  our  modern  point 
of  view,  for  not  only  are  the  phenomena  of  magnetism  and 
of  electricity  directly  correlated  and  interconvertible,  but 
the  concept  of  magnetism  perhaps  most  widely  accepted  at 
the  present  time,  holds  it  to  be  merely  an  electric  state; 
the  condition  of  electricity  in  whirling  or  vortex  motion. 

The  attempt  to  account  for  magnetic  attraction  as  the 
working  of  a  soul  in  the  stone  led  to  the  first  attack  of 
human  reason  upon  superstition  and  the  foundation  of 
philosophy. 

After  the  lapse  of  centuries,  a  new  capacity  of  the  lode- 
stone  became  revealed  in  its  polarity,  or  the  appearance  of 
opposite  effects  at  opposite  ends  ;  then  came  the  first  util- 
ization of  the  knowledge  thus  far  gained,  in  the  mariner's 
compass,  leading  to  the  discovery  of  the'  New  World,  and 
the  throwing  wide  of  all  the  portals  of  the  Old  to  trade 
and  civilization. 

The  predominance  of  the  magnet  in  human  thought  was 
yielded  to  the  amber,  when  the  strange  power  of  the  latter 
was  found  to  exist  also  in  other  things.  The  keen-eyed 
discoverers  saw  this  new  force  annihilate  time  and  space, 
and  flash  into  light ;  pursued  it  even  to  its  hiding-place  in 
the  clouds ;  beheld  it  grow  from  the  feeble  amber-soul  into 
the  mighty  thunderbolt ;  watched  it  until  the  whole  uni- 
verse showed  itself  pervaded  with  it. 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

This  was  a  true  intellectual  rise.  It  was  the  Intellect  at 
work  building  the  universe  of  which  it  is  the  key  ;  finding 
anew  that  Nature  also  is  working  in  every  detail  after  the 
laws  of  the  human  rnind. 

44  It  is  not,  then,  cities,  or  mountains,  or  animals,  or 
globes  that  any  longer  command  us,  but  only  man  ;  not 
the  fact,  but  so  much  of  man  as  is  in  the  fact"1 

So  in  this  research,  I  have  felt  that  it  is  not  so  much  the 
trials  and  the  discoveries  made  in  this  great  and  new  field 
of  Nature  which  attract  us,  instructive  and  useful,  even 
momentous  as  they  are — for  after  all  to  many  they  are  but 
abstractions — not  these,  so  much  as  the  breathing  human 
beings,  who  in  the  far  past  saw  them  and  deciphered  them 
in  the  light  of  those  other  days,  and  of  whose  life  they 
formed  a  part ;  who  thought  of  them,  and  whose  thoughts 
lived  on,  and  became  immortal,  and  moved  downward 
through  generation  after  generation  to  us ;  even  as  our 
thoughts,  joining  theirs,  will  pass  through  the  ages  to  the 
generations  yet  to  come. 

1  Emerson  :  Natural  History  of  Intellect. 


CHAPTER  I. 

x  THE  use- of  amber  begins  with  the  dawn  of  civilization. 
The  discovery  of  beads  in  the  royal  tombs  at  Mycenae  and 
at  various  places  throughout  Sardinia  and  the  territory  of 
ancient  Etruria,  proves  that  trade  in  it  existed  in  prehis- 
toric times;  while  the  identity  in  chemical  constitution  of 
the  amber  ornaments  of  Mycenae  and  the  Baltic  amber 
from  the  Tertiary  formation  of  the  Prussian  Samland,  the 
coasts  of  southern  Sweden  and  the  northern  Russian  pro- 
vinces, indicates  the  far  distant  source  from  which  the 
resin  was  anciently  derived.1  Who  first  brought  the  resin 
from  the  Baltic  Sea  to  the  L,evant  is  an  undetermined 
question,  since  it  is  known  to  have  come  southward  across 
Europe  by  land  as  well  as  around  the  continent  by  water. 
The  Phoenicians — those  far-sighted  and  consummately 
keen  traders,  whose  commercial  and  maritime  supremacy 
is  still  unrivaled  by  that  of  any  modern  nation — extended 
their  voyages  past  the  gates  of  the  world  into  the  unknown 
ocean  in  search  of  both  the  amber  of  the  Northern  Sea 
and  the  tin  of  Cornwall;  for  to  obtain  the  latter  the  makers 
of  bronze  from  all  quarters  flocked  to  the  great  metal 
market  of  Sidon.  Both  commodities  also  came  by  way  of 
the  Rhine  *  and  the  Rhone  to  Marseilles  and  across  the 
Alps  to  Etruria  and  chiefly  to  the  valley  of  the  Po,  besides 
elsewhere  by  other  land  routes,  along  all  of  which  stores 
of  tin  and  amber  have  been  found  as  they  were  ages  ago 
hidden  when  the  caravans  were  attacked  or  fell  victims  to 
the  natural  perils  of  the  road.  While  these  ways  are 
known  to  have  existed,  and  the  amber  trade  over  them  to 
have  been  maintained  before  Rome  or  Carthage  were 

1  Schliemann  c  Mycenae  and  Tiryns,   1876,  203,  245  ;  Tiryns,  1886,  369. 
Mmcox  :  Prehistoric  Civilizations,  1894. 

ds) 


16  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

founded,  it  may  be  that  the  Phoenician  voyages  to  the 
Baltic  were  of  still  greater  antiquity,  for  the  beads  of 
Mycenae  date  from  at  least  two  thousand  years  before  our 
era. 

The  amber  was  used  by  the  ancient  world  as  a  jewel 
and  for  decoration.  Its  color  and  lustre  reminded  the  fan- 
ciful Greeks  of  the  virgin  gold  which  glistened  in  the 
sands  of  Pactolus,  even  as  the  brilliant  metal  had  itself 
recalled  to  them  the  yellow  sunshine.  Afterwards  they 
applied  the  same  name  to  the  compounds  of  metals  which, 
when  burnished,  gave  a  golden  glow.  They  were  all  chil- 
dren of  the  sun  "Elector"  —  reflecting  in  miniature  his 
radiance.  Thus,  in  common  with  native  gold  and  the 
silver-gold  alloys,  the  amber,  in  Hellenic  speech,  came  to 
be  called  "electron."1 

Throughout  Greek  literature,  even  from  the  time  of 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  the  mention  of  it  is  frequent.  It  is 
inlaid  in  the  royal  roof  of  Menelaus,  it  bejewels  the  brace- 
lets of  Penelope,  the  necklaces  of  Eumoeus,2  and  the  shield 
of  Hercules.3  Legends  cluster  thick  about  it.  Through 
the  lost  tragedy  of  ^schylus,  the  Hippolyta  of  Euripides 
and  the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid  comes  the  myth  of 
Phaeton,  recounting  his  death  by  the  thunderbolt  and  fall 
into  the  river  Eridanus,  and  the  ,  transformation  of  the 
weeping  Heliades  into  poplars  ever  sighing  and  shedding 
their  amber  tears  beside  the  stream.  The  Greek  traders 
coming  to  the  mouth  of  the  Po  for  their  cargoes,  easily 
believed  the  story  —  perhaps  told  to  conceal  the  true 
source  —  that  the  resin  had  been  gathered  under  the  poplar 
trees  along  the  banks,  or  on  the  Electrides  —  the  islands  at 
the  outlet  of  the  river.  Long  afterwards,  so  firmly  did  the 


1  The  ancient  Greek  poets  called  the  sun  rp^xrop  and  Homer  repeatedly 
so  terms  it  (Iliad.  Z/  513:  T/  398).  "Electron"  is  used  very  indefi- 
nitely by  the  Greek  classic  writers—  and  in  fact  has  no  permanent  gender, 
though  commonly  neuter.  See  Rossignol  :  Les  Me"taux  Dans  1'Anti- 
quite",  345.  Paris,  1863. 

1  Odyssey.  »  Hesiod  :  Scutum  Herculis. 


!  ^ 

TRADITIONS   OF  THE   AMBER.  17 

legend  persist,  men  came  to  search  the  shores  of  Eridanus 
for  amber,  as  the  Spanish  adventurers  sought  the  Eldorado 
in  the  new  world. 

"Dost  thou  think  that  we  would  tug  against  this  torrent 
for  two  oboli  a  day?''  laughed  the  boatmen  of  the  Po  to 
the  discomfited  Lucian,  "could  we  find  riches  under  the 
poplar  trees  for  the  picking  up?" 

To  the  mythical  tales  set  afloat  by  the  traders,  became 
added  the  fancies  of  the  poets.  Amber  is  gathered,  so  ran 
one  fable,  by  the  maiden  guardians  of  the  golden  Hesper- 
ides  as  it  falls  from  the  poplars  into  Lake  Electrum ;  it  is 
the  slime  of  drear  Lake  Cephisis,  the  sweat  of  the  laboring 
soil  under  the  fierce  rays  of  the  sun,  the  tears  of  the  Indian 
birds  for  the  death  of  Meleager,  said  others.  And  the 
sailors  told  of  other  Electrides  islands  in  the  German 
ocean  and  off  the  Calabrian  coast  where  grew  the  tree 
"Electrida,"  and  of  stones  in  far-off  Britain  "purging 
thick  amber." 

It  often  happens  that  historical  facts  become  embedded, 
as  it  were,  in  the  names  of  things,  and  thus  preserved, 
and  the  knowledge  of  them  so  passed  down  through  cen- 
turies. Just  as  we  find  now  locked  in  the  yellow  depths 
of  the  amber,  bodies  of  insects  which  lived  ages  ago,  so  in 
one  of  the  designations  which  the  people  of  ancient  times 
gave  to  it  is  embalmed,  perhaps,  the  story  of  how  elec- 
tricity first  became  known  to  the  civilized  world. 

The  Syrian  women,  Pliny  says,1  called  the  amber  "har- 
paga"  or  "the  clutcher;"  which  is  obviously  based  on  a 
peculiarity  of  it  altogether  different  from  that  which  caused 
it  to  be  likened  to  an  embodied  sunbeam.  This  name,  in 
turn,  came  from  its  use  in  spinning,  the  oldest  handiwork 
known  to  the  race,  and  in  the  mode  of  spinning  which  has 
been  employed  since  the  very  beginning  of  civilization. 
So  that  we  may  conjecture  that  the  name  came  down  from 
the  old  Phoenicians,  and  that  the  amber  which  they 

1  Pliny  :  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  I  ;  Aldrovandus :  Musaeum  Metallicum.     Milan, 
1648,  404. 
2 


18  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

worked  into  beads  and  ornaments  found  its  place  in  the 
hands  of  every  woman  who  spun  with  the  distaff,  and  who 
could  afford  the  luxury  of  a  spindle  made  of  the  much- 
prized  substance.  The  way  in  which  the  spinning  was 
done  by  distaff  and  spindle,  Catullus  tells  : 

"The  loaded  distaff  in  the  left  hand  placed, 
With  spongy  coils  of  snow-white  wool  was  graced, 
From  these  the  right  hand  lengthening  fibres  drew, 
Which  into  thread  'neath  nimble  fingers  grew. 
At  intervals  a  gentle  touch  was  given, 
By  which  the  twirling  whorl  was  onward  driven. 
Then,  when  the  sinking  spindle  reached  the  ground, 
The  recent  thread  around  its  spire  was  wound, 
Until  the  clasp  within  its  nipping  cleft 
Held  fast  the  newly  finished  length  of  weft." 

As  the  spindle  descended,  and  at  the  same  time  whirled 
around,  it  rubbed  against  the  loose  feminine  garments  ; 
thus  it  became  electrified,  as  amber  always  does  when 
rubbed,  so  that  on  nearing  the  ground,  it  drew  to  itself  the 
dust  or  bits  of  leaves  or  chaff  lying  there,  or  sometimes  at- 
tracted the  light  fringe  of  clothing.  The  spinner  easily 
saw  this,  because  the  chaff  would  leap  up  to  the  excited 
resin,  or  the  fringe  filaments  extend  themselves  toward  it, 
and  moreover,  unless  she  were  careful,  the  dust  and  other 
substances  so  attracted  would  become  entangled  in  her 
thread.  Therefore,  she  called  her  amber  spindle,  the 
uclutcher  ; "  for  it  seemed  to  seize  these  light  bodies  as  if 
it  had  invisible  talons  which  not  only  grasped,  but  held. 
This  was  probably  the  first  intelligent  observation  of  an 
electrical  effect.  It  is  singular  that  it  should  have  become 
apparent  through  the  earliest  practical,  in  contradistinc- 
tion to  merely  ornamental,  use  of  the  amber,  though  per- 
haps nothing  strange  that  it  is  due  to  the  keener  percep- 
tion of  woman. 


THE   LODESTONE.  19 

The  lodestone  or  magnetite  is  an  ore  of  iron1  which 
sometimes  crops  out  as  a  rock  above  the  surface  of  the 
ground.  The  accidental  bringing  of  an  iron  object  into 
the  neighborhood  of  the  outcropping  stone  probably 
caused  the  first  observation  of  the  attractive  power  of  the 
rock  for  the  metal,  and  thus  furnished  the  basis  for  the 
legend  which  Pliny  copies  from  the  poet  Nicander  (who 
wrote  it  two  centuries  before  his  time),  concerning  the 
Shepherd  Magnes,  who,  while  guarding  his  flock  on  the 
slopes  of  Mount  Ida,  suddenly  found  the  iron  ferrule  of  his 
staff  and  the  nails  of  his  shoes  adhering  to  a  stone  ;  which 
subsequently  became  called  after  him,  the  "  Magnes 
Stone,"  or  "Magnet."  This  legend,  in  various  forms, 
retained  its  vitality  up  to  comparatively  recent  times.  As 
masses  of  magnetite  were  discovered  in  various  parts  of  the 
world,  the  stories  of  its  attractive  power  became  greatly 
exaggerated,  especially,  as  I  shall  hereafter  show,  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  In  fact,  magnetic  mountains  which 
would  pull  the  iron  nails  out  of  ships,  or,  later,  move  the 
compass  needle  far  astray,  did  not  lose  their  place  among 
the  terrors  of  the  sea  until  after  the  seventeenth  century 
had  become  well  advanced. 

The  phenomena  of  the  lodestone  are,  however,  two-fold. 
It  not  only  attracts  iron  objects,  but  it  has  polarity,  or,  in 
other  words,  exhibits  opposite  effects  at  opposite  ends  ;  by 
reason  of  which,  when  in  elongated  form  and  supported  so 
as  freely  to  turn,  it  will  place  itself  nearly  in  the  line  of  a 
meridian  of  the  earth  —  that  is,  nearly  in  a  north  and  south 
direction.  This  is  its  directive  tendency,  or,  as  William 
Gilbert  called  it  in  1600,  its  "verticity,"  and  upon  this 
quality,  as  is  well  known,  depends  the  use  of  the  magnet- 
ized needle  in  the  mariner's  compass. 

We  may  conclude  that  whoever  gained  the  first  knowl- 
edge of  the  attractive  power  of  the  lodestone,  was  also 
acquainted  with  iron,  if  he  had  an  iron  object  to  present 


aOs,   sp.  gr.  5.2,    contain2   72.41   per  cent,   of  iron.     Osborn: 
Metallurgy  of  Iron  and  Steel. 


20  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

to  the  stone  and  in  this  way  perceived  its  attraction. 
Iron,  however,  is  never  found  in  a  metallic  state  in 
nature,  except  in  meteorites.  Excluding  this  infinitesimal 
supply,  the  metal  is  obtained  from  its  ores,  by  means 
usually  involving  the  development  of  intense  heat,  so 
that  to  devise  modes  of  attaining  the  necessary  tempera- 
tures, let  alone  the  even  more  complex  mental  work 
of  contriving  apparatus  and  processes  for  separating  the 
metal,  requires  advanced  powers  of  observation  and  inven- 
tion. Hence  modern  ethnological  and  geological  author- 
ities unite  with  Lucretius1  and  other  ancient  writers  in 
affirming  that  the  Age  of  Iron  has  always  followed  that 
of  brass  or  bronze.  So  far,  therefore,  as  establishing  the 
probable  time  of  the  discovery  of  the  attractive  force  of 
the  lodestone  is  concerned,  it  is  immaterial  whether  we 
consider  that  the  phenomenon  was  first  remarked  as  an 
effect  of  outcropping  magnetite  upon  iron  brought  near  to 
it;  or  as  one  exerted  by  fragments  of  magnetite  in  an  iron 
mine  upon  other  fragments  of  the  same  substance,  or 
upon  extracted  iron.  In  any  case,  the  observation  of  the 
fact  seems  necessarily  to  have  followed  the  advent  of  an 
Iron  Age,  and  therefore  may  not  extend  indefinitely  back 
into  prehistoric  times. 

On  the  other  hand,  with  regard  to  the  directive  tendency 
of  the  lodestone  a  different  conclusion  is  reached.  To  sus- 
pend an  elongated  piece  of  the  stone  and  see  it  turn  itself 
in  a  definite  direction;  or  to  do  this  repeatedly  and  with 
different  pieces  and  thus  learn  that  the  phenomenon  is 
true  of  this  particular  stone  and  not  of  other  stones,  obvi- 
ously involves  no  necessary  knowledge  of  its  attractive 
effect  on  iron.  Therefore,  if  we  admit  the  possibility  of 
sufficient  intelligence  in  the  race  then  living,  we  may  con- 
jecture that  an  acquaintance  with  magnetic  polarity  may 
have  existed  among  the  earliest  peoples  of  which  we 
have  any  tradition.  I  shall  show  hereafter  that  reason 
for  such  conjecture  is  by  no  means  absent,  which  if  ac- 

1  De  Natura  Rerum,  v. 


THE  IRON  AGE.  21 

cepted,  places  human  knowledge  of  the  directive  tendency 
of  the  lodestone  not  only  far  beyond  the  limits  of  history, 
but  even  suggests  the  utilization  of  that  knowledge  by 
wandering  hordes  for  their  actual  guidance  over  the  wil- 
dernesses of  the  earth,  at  the  same  extremely  remote  epoch. 

For  the  present,  however,  it  is  necessary  to  deal  with 
modern  civilization  and  periods  within  historical  times, 
and  therefore,  to  begin  with  an  inquiry  into  the  familiarity 
of  the  western  world  with  magnetic  attraction ;  for  what- 
ever the  Asiatic  people  may  have  known  concerning  mag- 
netic polarity,  there  is  no  trustworthy  evidence  that  the 
nations  of  Europe  had  the  slightest  acquaintance  with  it 
before  the  twelfth  century  of  our  era. 

It  is  especially  difficult  to  determine  the  positive  date 
when  any  nation  made  the  transition  from  the  bronze  to 
the  iron  age,  and  practically  impossible  to  do  so  in  the 
cases  of  people  who  either  inhabited  countries  where  iron 
does  not  abound,  or  who  never  acquired  the  art  of  obtain- 
ing it.  In  such  event,  the  substitution  of  implements  of 
iron  necessarily  imported  from  other  countries  for  the 
native  ones  of  bronze,  to  which  the  population  had  become 
accustomed  by  ages  of  use,  was  an  exceedingly  slow  pro- 
cess, retarded  by  the  mental  inertia  of  the  times,  and  often 
by  national  pride  in  home  customs  and  handiwork. 
Hence  arises  the  seeming  anomaly  that  among  people  far 
advanced  in  civilization,  the  general  use  of  iron  can  be 
recognized  only  at  a  comparatively  late  period  in  their 
history;  while  among  barbarians,  incomparably  below 
them  in  intellectual  attainments,  we  find  evidence  of  its 
employment  at  immensely  earlier  periods.  In  Denmark, 
for  example,  the  age  of  iron  corresponds  to  that  of  the 
beech  tree.  Hesiod,  writing  in  850  B.  C.,  speaks  of  the 
time  when  "men  wrought  in  brass,  when  iron  did  not 
exist;"  and  Homer,  although  frequently  referring  to 
weapons  and  implements  of  bronze,  mentions  iron  but 
rarely.  The  Aztecs,  at  the  time  of  the  Conquest,  knew 
nothing  of  the  metal,  although  their  soil  was  impregnated 


22  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

with  it.  The  Peruvians,  under  the  same  natural  condi- 
tions, were  equally  ignorant1 

The  traditions  of  magnetic  attraction,  however,  date 
from  periods  far  earlier  than  the  days  of  Nicander.  The 
iron  of  antiquity  was  mined  chiefly  on  the  islands  and 
coasts  of  the  <££gean  Sea,  and  on  Elba  and  Crete,  although 
some  came  even  from  distant  Ethiopia.  That  found  on 
the  slopes  of  Mount  Ida  or  on  the  Mediterranean  islands 
was  famous.  Its  strange  hunger  for  other  iron,  which  it 
seized  and  drew  unto  itself,  was  to  the  superstitious  Greek 
a  mystery,  concerning  which  the  uninitiated  might  not 
even  think  for  fear  of  the  anger  of  the  gods  :  the  anger  of 
Celmis,  and  Damnamenus  and  Acnion  the  irresistible,  and 
later  of  Azieros,  Aziokersa  and  Aziokersos,  whose  very 
names  were  mystic  and  dangerous  to  speak. 

In  far-off  ages,  so  said  the  legend,  Rhea,  the  earth  god- 
dess of  Phrygia,  sent  to  Ida,  and  thence  to  Samothrace,  in 
the  -££gean,  those  of  her  children  who  were  skillful  under- 
ground, and  wise  in  their  knowledge  of  the  ores,  and 
where  they  lay  hidden  in  the  cracks  and  crevices  of  the 
rock.  And,  because  of  their  skill,  these  emissaries  re- 
ceived the  name  of  "Dactyls" — fingers  ;  for  they  were  "the 
fingers  of  Rhea."  Some  of  them  went  to  Crete  ;  but 
wherever  they  journeyed  (and  Samothrace  became  their 
main  abode),  they  dug  into  the  earth  and  brought  out 
the  iron  ore  ;  and  when  the  people  saw  them  heat  this, 
and  melt  it  and  produce  the  black,  hard  ringing  metal, 
they  believed  them  to  be  gods,  and  their  art  a  mystery. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Idean  Dactyls  seem  to  have  been 
merely  a  roving  band  of  Phrygian  miners,2  who  carried 

1  Prescott  :  History  of  the  Conquest  of  Mexico.  1865,  i.,  139,  and  works 
there  cited. 

Lyell,  Sir  C. :  The  Geological  Evidences  of  the  Antiquity  of  Man. 
London,  1873,  8. 

3  Rossignol,  cit.  sup.,  refers  to  the  Scholiast  of  Apollonius  of  Rhodes  on 
the  Phoronid,  an  ancient  and  fragmentary  poem  which  he  considers  as 
old  as  the  works  of  Hesiod  and  Homer.  This,  concerning  the  Idean 
Dactyls,  says,  "they  first  found  in  the  mountain  forests  the  art  of  the 


ANCIENT  IRON  WORKERS.  23 

their  metallurgical  knowledge  to  places  where  the  ore 
existed,  but  like  knowledge  did  not ;  and  who  taught 
mining  and  iron-working  to  the  Hellenes,  or  to  those  who 
occupied  the  land  before  them. 

Following  the  Dactyls  came  the  Cabin,  a  second  and 
more  skillful  band  of  iron-workers,  who  were  indeed  more 
handicraftsmen  than  miners.  Concerning  these,  all  rec- 
ords are  most  obscure  and  conflicting,  and  they  are,  be- 
sides, inextricably  entangled  with  the  myths  of  several 
nations.  Like  the  Dactyls,  the  Cabiri  came  from  Phrygia 
to  Samothrace,  L,emnos  and  Imbros.  Their  cult  seems  to 
have  attained  its  greatest  vigor,  however,  at  Samothrace, 
and  ultimately  to  have  spread  to  Macedonia  and  Phoenicia. 
It  possessed  great  vitality,  since  as  late  as  the  fourth  cen- 
tury of  our  era  it  was  in  a  flourishing  existence. 

The  Samothracian  Cabiri  became  combined  with  the 
Dioscuri,  Castor  and  Pollux,  the  twin  sons  of  Heaven,  who 
presided  over  the  mariners;  and  with  the  Egyptian  Phtha- 
Sokari  and  the  Greek  Haephaestos ;  and  later  with  the 
Corybantes  and  Curetes,  which  appear  to  have  been  other 
bands  belonging  to  the  same  family.  Their  worship  fre- 
quently changed  form,  so  that  even  the  mystic  recitals  of 
the  Orphic  hymns  relating  to  it,  now  ascribed  to  the  false 
Orpheus  or  Onomacritus,  who  lived  as  late  as  514  B.  C., 
are  a  confused  jumble  of  forgeries,  to  which  even  the 
Christian  philosophers  are  said  to  have  added  their  quota. 

From  the  various  legends  and  traditions,  however,  the 
probable  fact  appears  that  the  first  iron  miners  of  Greece 
came  from  Phrygia,  which  abounded  in  the  metal,  and 
settled  in  Samothrace.  Here  they  instituted  the  myster- 
ies which  so  long  afterwards  prevailed,  and  in  the  begin- 
ning, as  a  proof  of  their  supernatural  skill,  they  exhibited 
the  attractive  phenomena  of  the  lodestone  through  the 
mystic  working  of  the  so-called  Samothracian  rings. 

The  first  mention  of  the  magnet  in  the  Greek  classics  is 

cunning  Vulcan,  the  black  iron,  carried  it  to  the  fire  and  produced  won- 
derful work." 


24  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

apparently  that  made  in  the  fragmentary  Oeneus  of  Eurip- 
ides, which  Suidas1  quotes,  and  which  distinctly  refers  to 
the  attraction  of  the  lodestone  for  the  iron.  The  subject 
takes  definite  form,  however,  in  the  Ion  of  Plato;  and 
there,  in  the  following  words,  Socrates  describes  the 
famous  rings  : 

"  The  gift  which  you  have  of  speaking  excellently  about 
Homer,  is  not  an  art,"  says  the  sage,  "but,  as  I  was  just 
saying,  an  inspiration:  there  is  a  divinity  moving  you,  like 
that  in  the  stone  which  Euripides  calls  a  magnet,  but 
which  is  commonly  known  as  the  stone  of  Heraclea.  For 
that  stone  not  only  attracts  iron  rings,  but  also  imparts  to 
them  similar  power  of  attracting  other  rings :  and  some- 
times you  may  see  a  number  of  pieces  of  iron  and  rings 
suspended  from  one  another,  so  as  to  form  quite  a  long 
chain  ;  and  all  of  these  derive  their  powers  of  suspension 
from  the  original  stone.  Now,  this  is  like  the  Muse  who 
first  gives  to  men  inspiration  herself,  and  from  those  in- 
spired, her  sons,  a  chain  of  other  persons  is  suspended, 
who  will  take  the  inspiration  from  them."  2 

Plato  lived  between  the  years  429  and  348  B.  C.,  and 
from  his  time  forward  the  rings  of  Samothrace  are  de- 
scribed again  and  again.  Lucretius,  writing  three  cen- 
turies later,  refers  to  them  as  still  potent.  Their  well- 
established  existence  shows  that  the  Samothracian 
wonder-workers  not  only  were  familiar  with  the  attractive 
power  of  the  lodestone,  but  with  its  capability  of  inducing 
a  similar  power  in  iron.  The  popular  belief  that  every- 
thing which  produces  wonderful  effects  must  have  won- 
derful properties,  and  the  converse  popular  tendency  which 
seeks  a  cause  for  any  effect  not  understood,  in  things  con- 
cerning which  prevailing  ignorance  is  still  deeper,  were 
fully  as  strong  in  those  ancient  days  as  they  are  now. 
For  precisely  the  same  reason  that  the  modern  "magneto- 
therapist"  plays  upon  the  imagination  of  the  patient,  or 

'Suidas  :  Lex.  Graec.  et.  Lat.  post  T.  Gaisford,  Halle,  1853,  658. 
*Jowett,  B.  :  The  Dialogues  of  Plato. 


THE   SAMOTHRACIAN   RINGS.  25 

the  charlatan  sells  to  the  credulous  so-called  "magnetic" 
panaceas  for  every  ailment,  so  the  priests  of  Samothrace 
drove  a  thriving  trade  in  their  magnetized  iron  rings  as 
amulets  and  cure-alls.  They  were  worn  by  the  worship- 
pers of  the  Cabiri,  later  by  the  Roman  priests  of  Jupiter, 
and  in  Pliny's  time  they  became  the  usual  pledge  of 
betrothal. 

The  Cabiri  were  remembered  long  after  their  individual 
cult  had  disappeared.  They  became  converted  into  the 
gnomes  and  the  elves  of  the  legends  and  folk-tales  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  and  in  the  first  modern  treatises  on  mining 
we  find  them  still  depicted  as  dwarfs  with  their  picks  and 
shovels  and  attended  by  their  dogs,  searching  for  the 
metals  in  the  depths  of  the  earth.  Even  so  skillful  a 
miner  as  George  Agricola,1  whose  great  work  begins  the 
present  science  of  metallurgy,  cannot  divest  himself  of  a 
half-belief  in  them;  for  in  his  quaint  pictures  he  always 
shows  them  at  work  in  the  mines,  although  often  amid 
machinery  which  the  old  Greeks  who  worshiped  at  Samo- 
thrace might  well  have  regarded  as  the  handiwork  of 
higher  gods  than  those  which  they  there  adored. 

There  were  many  near-by  sources  for  the  lodestone 
which  supported  and  magnetized  the  Samothracian  rings; 
for  iron  mines  existed  not  only  on  the  slopes  of  Mount 
Ida,  and  on  Elba  and  Crete,  but  on  the  island  of  Samo- 
thrace itself.  It  was  because  the  magnetic  ore  was  found 
in  the  same, deposits  as  the  ordinary  ores  of  iron,  that  the 
Greeks  at  first  called  it  "Siderites"  or  ironstone.  Later 
because  of  its  power  of  overcoming  iron,  and  of  forcing 
that  hard  and  intractable  metal  to  come  to  it,  they  termed 
it  the  "Hercules  stone,"  and  later  still  they  gave  it  the 
name  which  it  still  most  commonly  bears,  the  magnet, 
which  as  Lucretius  says  comes  "from  its  country,  for  it 
had  its  origin  in  the  native  hills  of  the  Magnesians." 
This,  of  course,  is  widely  at  variance  with  Pliny's  fanciful 
derivation  of  the  same  name. 

Agricola  :  De  Re  Metallica,  1556. 


26  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Lucretius,  however,  who  wrote  many  centuries  after  the 
event,  is  probably  in  error,  for  there  is  little,  if  any,  mag- 
netic iron  ore  in  the  hills  of  ancient  Magnesia — the  narrow 
and  mountainous  strip  of  land  on  which  rise  Mounts  Ossa 
and  Pelion,  and  which  formed  the  most  easterly  province 
of  Thessaly.  The  Magnetes — as  the  inhabitants  called 
themselves — were,  in  fact,  hemmed  in  between  sea  and 
mountains.  The  last  formed  a  serviceable  barrier  against 
the  Thesprotians  when  this  tribe  made  its  irruption  into 
Thessaly;  but  when,  through  natural  increase  of  popula- 
tion, the  territory  of  the  Magnetes  became  too  restricted 
for  their  needs,  there  was  no  alternative  but  to  cross  the 
^Egean  and  seek  new  footholds  on  the  Asiatic  continent, 
where,  Pliny  says,  they  founded  the  city  of  Magnesia  in 
Ionia.  But  a  later  arrival  of  ^Eolians  drove  them  north- 
ward, and  they  established  a  second  city,  also  named  Mag- 
nesia, beside  Mount  Sipylus  in  Lydia.  It  is  conjectured 
that  their  national  pride  caused  them  to  retain  the  name 
of  their  old  home  for  both  settlements :  a  theory  which 
gains  support  from  the  fact  that  the  ^olians  and  lonians, 
in  founding  new  towns,  were  accustomed  to  adopt  for  them 
local  designations.1  It  is  this  second  Magnesia  which  is 
most  reasonably  supposed  to  have  given  its  name  to  the 
magnet,  because  of  the  large  deposits  of  magnetic  ore, 
similar  to  that  found  at  Elba,  which  still  exist  in  its 
vicinity  and  which  were  probably  the  ancient  source  of 
supply.  The  town  itself  was  destroyed  by  an  earthquake 
in  the  time  of  Tiberius. 

If  this  emigration  of  the  Magnetes  ever  occurred,  it 
happened  before  700  B.  C.,  and  possibly  before  1000  B.  C., 
the  latter  being  generally  regarded  as  the  period  when  the 
colonizing  movement  of  the  ancient  tribes  ended  ;  but, 
like  all  such  traditions,  it  is  unsafe  to  accept  it  as  a  his- 
torical fact.  Another  version  of  the  same  story  is  that  the 
Magnesians  settled  in  both  Lydia  and  Ionia  on  their  re- 
turn from  Troy;  still  another  makes  them  out,  not  willing 

Abbott,  E.  A.  :  History  of  Greece,  New  York,  1888. 


THE  ORIGIN  OF  THE  MAGNET.  27 

emigrants,  but  fugitives  flying  from  Greece,  and  a  third 
brings  them,  not  from  Thessaly  at  all,  but  from  Delphoi.1 

Divested  of  speculation,  there  remains  simply  the  fact 
that  there  was  a  town  of  Magnesia  close  to  a  large  bed  of 
magnetite.2  Klaproth 3  notes  that  this  same  settlement 
was  called  "Heraclea,"  whence  the  Greek  term  "stone  of 
Heraclea  "  for  the  magnet  ;  but  there  was  also  a  town  of 
Heraclea  near  the  first  Magnesia,  and  several  other  settle- 
ments, similarly  named,  in  widely  separated  parts  of 
Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  so  that  this  derivation  is  also 
in  doubt.  Indeed,  Pliny4  regards  the  name  "stone  of 
Heraclea"  or  "Heraclea-lithos,"  not  as  based  on  locality, 
but  as  meaning  "Herculean  stone,"  for  the  reason  already 
given,  namely,  the  conquering  power  of  the  magnet  over 
iron  ;  and  Professor  Schweigger,5  with  labored  ingenuity, 
goes  even  further,  and  asserts  that  "Herculean"  and 
"magnetic"  mean  the  same  thing,  and  that  the  entire 
ancient  myth  of  Hercules  merely  symbolized  the  natural 
strength  of  the  magnet. 

To  these  early  traditions  of  the  Greeks  and  Syrians, 
research  into  the  dim  historical  annals  of  other  peoples, 
existing  at  that  far  distant  time,  adds  nothing  of  import- 
ance. A  familiarity  with  electrical  (or  magnetic)  effects  is 
often  attributed  to  the  Egyptians  of  the  Pharaonic  periods; 
but  this  seems  to  be  without  trustworthy  foundation.  No 
legends  of  magnetic  rocks  or  mountains  on  Egyptian  ter- 
ritory have  been  encountered.  But  one  Egyptian  iron 
mine  shows  any  signs  of  having  been  anciently  worked, 
and,  there  the  ore  is  of  the  specular  or  red,  and  not  of  the 
magnetic  variety.6  L,epsius  considers  that  iron  or  steel  do 

1  Cox,  G.  W. :  A  History  of  Greece,  London,  1874. 

2 Trans.  Phil.  Soc.,  Cambridge;  and  Athenaeum,  Jan.  4,  1834.  See, 
also,  Wilkin's  Ed.  of  Works  of  Sir  T.  Browne.  London,  1883. 

sL'Invention  de  la  Boussole,  Paris,  1834.  *Lib.  xxxvi. 

6  Ennemoser :    History  of  Magic,  London,  1854. 

6  Wilkinson:  Anc.  Egyptians,  Boston,  1883,  ii.,  250.  Rawlinson : 
Hist,  of  Anc.  Egypt,  London,  iSSi,  93. 


28  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

not  occur  at  all  in  the  old  empire,  but  only  in  the  new.1 
Rawlinson,2  on  the  other  hand,  while  conceding  the 
strength  of  the  theory  that  iron  was  first  introduced  into 
Egypt  by  the  Ptolemies,  notes  that  some  implements  of 
the  metal  have  been  found  in  the  tombs,  with  nothing 
about  them  indicative  of  their  belonging  to  a  late  period  ; 
and  that  a  scrap  of  iron  plate  was  discovered  by  Vyse  in 
the  masonry  of  the  Great  Pyramid.  He  also  points  out 
that  the  paucity  of  such  instances  may  be  partially,  if  not 
wholly,  accounted  for  by  the  rapid  decay  of  iron  in  the 
nitrous  Egyptian  earth,  or  when  oxidized  by  exposure  to 
the  air;  so  that,  as  he  says,  the  most  judicious  of  modern 
Egyptologists  seem  to  hold  that,  while  the  use  of  iron  in 
Pharaonic  times  was  at  best  rare  and  occasional,  neverthe- 
less the  metal  was  not  wholly  unknown,  and  may  have 
been  brought  into  the  country  from  Phoenicia,  in  a  manu- 
factured state. 

In  such  circumstances  it  is  hardly  possible  to  assume  any 
Egyptian  knowledge  of  the  lodestone,  due  to  direct  discov- 
ery of  it.  The  only  apparently  explicit  evidence  which 
has  been  encountered  is  the  statement  of  Plutarch,  that 
the  Egyptian  priest  Manetho,  who  lived  about  three  cen- 
turies before  our  era,  and  who  wrote  a  history  of  his  coun- 
try for  the  Greeks  who  had  recently  settled  there,  reported 
that  the  Egyptians  of  a  far  distant  period  called  the  mag- 
net the  "bone  of  Horus,"  and  the  iron  the  "bone  of  Ty- 
phon."  But  Manetho' s  work,  when  Plutarch  wrote  about 
it,  was  six  centuries  old  and  existed  only  in  the  form  of 
epitomes  which  were  mutually  conflicting,  while  his  chro- 
nology is  now  known  to  be  unreliable.8 

It  has  been  suggested  that  such  iron  as  has  been  found 
in  Egypt,  and  referred  to  Pharaonic  times,  may  have  been 

1Lepsius  :  Die  Metalle  in  den  Aegyptischen  Inschriften,  1872, 105,  114. 
Peschel :  The  Races  of  Man,  New  York,  1876,  488. 

2  Hist,  of  Anc.  Egypt,  i.,  505. 

8  Rawlinson,  cit.  sup.,  ii ,  6,  8.  Cox  :  History  of  Greece,  i.,  614,  Appen- 
dix D,  wherein  Manetho's  chronology  is  fully  discussed. 


ANCIENT   MAGNETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  29 

made  and  used  by  the  Hebrews  during  their  servitude,  and 
that  when  they  left  the  country  they  carried  their  knowl- 
edge with  them.  That  they  were  familiar  with  the  metal, 
at  the  period  of  Moses,  and  hence  at  about  1,500  years  B. 
C.,  and  possibly  had  known  of  it  then  for  a  long  time,  is 
shown  by  the  mention  of  Tubal  Cain,1  uan  instructor  of 
every  artificer  in  brass  and  iron,"  as  a  personage  of  great 
antiquity,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  Pentateuch.  Their 
continuing  knowledge  of  it,  over  many  centuries,  is  further 
shown  by  the  biblical  references  to  the  bed  of  iron  of  Og, 
the  iron  chariots  of  Javin,  the  miraculous  floating  ax-head 
of  Elisha,  the  question  "shall  iron  break  the  northern  iron 
and  the  steel"  in  the  Jeremiad,  and  many  other  instances, 
easily  found.  There  are  Jewish  writers,  moreover,  who 
assert  that  not  only  were  the  Hebrews  thus  fully  ac- 
quainted with  iron,  but  that  they  were  equally  well  aware 
of  the  magnet  and  its  attractive  force.  The  famous  Rabbi 
Mosheh  ben  Maimon  (Maimonides),2  who  wrote  at  the  end 
of  the  twelfth  century,  mentions  not  only  an  image  of  the 
sun,  in  the  Babylonian  Temple  of  Beltis,  as  maintained  in 
suspension  in  the  air  by  means  of  magnets,  but  avers  that 
Jeroboam  suspended  the  golden  calves,  which  he  com- 
manded Israel  to  worship,  in  the  same  way.3  No  proof, 
however,  seems  to  support  this  tradition,  which,  if  true, 
would  show  the  Hebrew  acquaintance  with  the  magnet  to 
have  existed  at  about  950  B.  C.  Kircher  *  quotes  Rabbi 
Isaac  Abaxbanel,  who  wrote  late  in  the  i5th  century,  as 
authority  for  the  statement  that  the  Israelites  knew  of  the 
magnet  while  wandering  in  the  wilderness,  and  even  used 
it  in  the  construction  of  the  tabernacle  ;  but  this  again  is 
yet  more  vague  and  doubtful  than  the  ascription  to  Jero- 
boam. 

1  Genesis,  iv.  32. 

2  Moreh  Nebukhim  (Guide  to  the  Perplexed).     Talmud,  Tract,  Sene- 
drin,  c.  3 :  Gemarah,  c.  Aegel. 

3 1  Kings,  xii.  28. 

4 Kircher:  De  Arte  Magnetica.     Rome,  1654. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  Egyptian  ports  were,  for  the  first  time,  opened  to 
general  foreign  commerce  by  Psaininetichns  I.,  in  640 
B.  C.  Thereupon  a  stream  of  immigrants  from  all  parts 
of  Hellas  came  pouring  into  the  Nile  land.  Up  to  this 
time,  Egypt  had  been  a  hermit  nation,  discouraging  inter- 
course, restricting  trade  and  prohibiting  the  circulation 
within  her  territory  of  foreigners,  whom  she  regarded  as 
cannibals  and  pirates.  Nevertheless  there  had  come  to 
the  outer  world,  reports  of  her  magnificent  cities,  her 
great  temples,  and  of  a  people  so  ancient  and  so  learned, 
that,  to  the  barbarians  of  the  North,  these  stories  seemed 
like  legends  of  the  gods.  The  curiosity  of  all  men  con- 
cerning her  was  keen  and  whetted  with  the  expectation 
of  centuries. 

The  Egyptian  king  had  triumphed  in  the  civil  war 
against  his  colleagues  by  the  aid  of  Greek  mercenaries. 
The  unbarring  of  the  country  to  the  men  to  whom  he 
owed  his  throne  was  a  political  necessity,  regardless  of  the 
involved  violation  of  customs  and  traditions  hoary  with 
age.  The  change  in  national  policy  was  radical,  and,  once 
made,  the  logical  consequences  followed.  Not  merely  the 
lonians,  but  the  people  of  all  Greece,  and,  in  fact,  of  all 
states,  flocked  to  the  Delta  of  the  Nile,  and  the  swarthy 
and  black-haired  builders  of  the  obelisks  saw,  for  the  first 
time,  the  red-haired  and  blue-eyed  barbarians  from  the  huts 
of  the  far  north. 

The  Greek  who  came  then  to  Egypt  lived  in  a  world 
greater  than  that  which  was  included  within  the  shadowy 
boundaries  of  Hellas,  conterminous  only  with  Greek  speech 
and  Greek  customs.  For  he  abided  in  one  of  his  own 
creation,  and  it  abided  with  him:  a  world  peopled  by  his 

(30) 


GREEK  NATURE  WORSHIP.  31 

own  fancy  with  deities,  whose  imaginary  doings  were  part 
and  parcel  of  his  life,  and  which  controlled  his  every 
action.  Every  phenomenon  of  nature  to  him  was  the 
work,  voluntary  or  involuntary,  of  a  personal  agent.  If  the 
earth  quaked,  imprisoned  giants  were  struggling  against 
the  bonds  of  the  higher  gods  ;  Zeus  wept  in  the  rain-drops, 
and  the  tears  of  Niobe  fell  in  the  snowflakes.  Every 
wood  and  every  stream  had  for  him  its  divinities.  They 
ushered  in  the  dawn  and  at  night  he  saw  them  wandering 
through  the  sky.  All  nature  was  alive — all  things  were 
conscious  things.  There  was  no  distinction  between  his 
mythology  and  theology,  none  between  the  latter  and  his 
system  of  religion,  no  question  which  the  fictions  of  his 
brain  could  not  answer,  and  no  doubt  which  his  imagina- 
tion could  not  solve.  If  limits  to  his  speculative  faculty 
existed,  they  were  to  be  reached  only  when  it  wearied  of 
its  own  exuberance — a  logical  impossibility,  perhaps, 
when  the  creator  was  the  worshiper  of  his  own  creations. 
Equally  were  there  no  bounds  to  the  theories  which  might 
be  evolved  to  account  for  natural  facts,  provided  each  fact 
were  fitted  with  its  own  theory,  and  the  supernatural  were 
open  to  constant  invocation;  but  when  it  came  to  traveling 
outside  of  the  ratiocinative  circle,  and  to  knowing  things 
in  themselves  and  formulating  theories  which  would  stand 
the  test  of  explaining  exactly  ascertained  facts,  such  con- 
ceptions in  the  mind  of  the  Greek  who  lived  six  centuries 
before  our  era,  had  no  more  place  than  they  have  in  that 
of  the  child  who  dwells  in  the  happy  world  of  the  fairy 
books.1 

The  Egyptian  of  the  same  period  claimed  a  national 
existence  extending  back  for  millenniums.  His  religion 
was  of  double  aspect:  a  strict  monotheism  combined  with 
a  speculative  philosophy  on  the  two  great  subjects  of  the 
nature  of  God  and  the  destiny  of  man,  and  a  gross  and 
multitudinous  polytheism.2  The  intelligent,  the  learned 

1  Cox  :  History  of  Greece,  cit.  sup.,  127. 

2  Rawlinson  :  History  of  Egypt,  i.,  505. 


32  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

and  the  initiated  were  invited  to  contemplate  in  the  first, 
a  divine  nature  essentially  unitary,  pure  spirit,  perfect,  all- 
wise,  almighty,  supremely  good;  the  ignorant  masses  in 
the  second,  a  variety  of  gods  ranging  from  heroes  to  bulls, 
cats,  and  apes,  and  a  worship  teeming  with  rites  unspeak- 
able. 

Of  science  properly  so  called  the  Egyptian  had  none.1 
He  claimed  to  have  made  records  of  natural  facts  for  ages, 
such,  for  example,  as  astronomical  observations,  which,  as 
he  boasted,  had  been  kept  up  for  six  thousand  centuries. 
But  out  of  this  vast  storehouse  of  accumulated  data  not  a 
single  theory  explanatory  of  the  motions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  ever  emerged.  He  heaped  up  facts  as  he  did  the 
stones  of  the  great  pyramid,  with  infinite  labor,  and  over 
a  great  interval  of  time,  but  the  mountain  of  facts  was  as 
lifeless  as  the  mountain  of  stone.  It  was  dead,  it  held  the 
dead,  and  there  was  no  health  in  it. 

There  lived  at  this  time,  a  keen  young  Milesian,2  of  an 
intelligence  far  above  tke  ordinary  mental  level  of  his 
countrymen  ;  in  character  uniting  the  astuteness  of  the 
Phoenician,  whence  he  sprang,  with  the  impressionable 
temperament  of  the  Hellene  ;  one  of  those  "souls  born  out 
of  time  extraordinary  prophetic,  who  are  rather  related  to 
the  system  of  the  world  than  to  their  particular  age  and 
locality."3  Upon  this  phenomenal  mind  reacted  an  intel- 
lectual environment  wherein  the  most  diverse  elements 
were  commingled  ;  conceptions  of  the  spirit  gods  of  Egypt, 
jarring  with  those  of  the  anthropomorphic  deities  of 
Greece ;  dawning  notions  of  physical  astronomy  jumbled 
together  with  the  sports  of  the  shining  gods  and  goddesses 
in  the  blue  vault,  and  no  straight  thought  anywhere.  The 
result  was  the  beginning  of  philosophy  ;  for  when  Thales 
of  Miletus  saw  how  the  machinery  given  to  man  to  under- 
stand facts  could  neither  make  the  facts  nor  control  them, 

1  Buckle  :  History  of  Civilization,  i.,  36. 

2  Plutarch  :  De  Placet.  Phil,  j,  3.     Clem.  Alex.  :  Strom  i,  15,  \  66. 
8  Emerson  :  Wealth. 


THALES.  33 

how  the  most  it  could  do  was  to  react  upon  itself  end- 
lessly in  endless  circles  of  myths  and  shadows,  he,  for  the 
first  time  in  the  history  of  the  human  mind,  insisted  upon 
finding,  not  in  figments  of  the  imagination,  but  in  the 
things  themselves,  a  theory  intended  to  account  for  the 
phenomena  observed.  There  was  a  great  difference  between 
doing  this,  however  imperfectly  or  illogically,  and  referring 
the  same  happenings  to  the  interference  of  the  immortal 
gods.  Thus,  speculation  disengaged  itself  from  theolog- 
ical guidance,  the  effects  of  nature  became  no  longer  the 
sport  of  unseen  beings,  and  the  causes  of  all  change  were 
sought  in  the  conditions  of  things  themselves.1 

Now  the  particular  natural  effect  upon  which  Thales 
pondered,  and  for  which  he  endeavored  to  account  by  a 
theory,  physical  through  its  connection  with  the  thing 
itself— and  not  based  upon  supernatural  influences — was 
the  attractive  power  of  the  lodestone.  And  thus  it  came 
about  that  the  mystery  of  the  magnet  gave  the  first  impetus 
to  philosophic  thought. 

Aristotle  reports  the  sayings  of  Thales  only  by  hearsay, 
and  then  with  extreme  caution:  the  first  being  that  every- 
thing is  full  of  gods,  and  the  second2  (and  it  is  this  which 
is  of  especial  importance  in  our  present  research)  that 
"Thales  too,  as  is  related,  seems  to  regard  the  soul  as 
somehow  producing  motion,  for  he  said  that  the  stone  has 
a  soul  since  it  moves  iron." 

Thus  we  find  the  magnet  at  the  very  foundation  of  the 
world's  philosophy.  Refusing  to  account  for  the  attrac- 
tion of  the  lodestone  by  supernatural  interposition,  as  the 
priests  and  worshipers  at  Samothrace  had  undoubtedly 
done  centuries  before,  Thales  assumed  a  soul  or  a  virtue 
inherent  and  existing  in  the  magnet  itself,  whereby  it  was 
enabled  to  move  the  iron.  Herein  he  perceived  the  mani- 
festation of  a  first  principle,  common  to  all  nature,  which 

1  Lewes:  Histy.  of  Phily., London,  1871,  vol.  I,  5. 
2De  Anima,  i.  2;  i.  5. 
3 


34  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

he  conceived  to  be  water — probably,  says  Aristotle,  deriv- 
ing his  opinion  from  observing  that  the  nutriment  of  all 
things  is  moist,  and  that  even  actual  heat  is  therefrom 
generated  and  animal  life  sustained. 

Writers  of  every  age,  from  Aristotle  onward,  have 
agreed  in  regarding  Thales  as  the  father  of  philosophy, 
and  yet  very  little  is  known  of  his  life :  Herodotus  and 
Aristotle  are  nearest  to  him  in  point  of  time,  and  they 
furnish  all  that  is  even  measurably  trustworthy  concerning 
him.  Herodotus1  describes,  first,  his  prediction  of  an 
eclipse  of  the  sun  which  brought  to  a  sudden  end  one  of 
the  interminable  series  of  battles  which  the  Lydians  and 
Medes  were  waging,  and  also  that  when  the  advance  of  the 
army  of  Croesus  was  impeded  by  a  river,  he  caused  a  new 
channel  to  be  made  for  the  stream  in  rear  of  the  camp,  so 
that  the  water  becoming  divided  into  two  branches  became 
sufficiently  shallow  to  be  fordable.  Modern  re-calculation 
of  the  eclipse  fixes  its  probable  date,  and  hence  the  period 
when  Thales  lived,  at  585  B.  C.2 

If  so  minute  and  cautious  an  investigator  as  Aristotle 
could  obtain  nothing  more  definite  concerning  Thales  than 
such  as  is  contained  in  the  meagre  statements  which  he 
gives,  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  commentators 
who  came  afterwards  could  have  had  any  better  sources  for 
trustworthy  information,  especially  as  time  has  not 
brought  to  light  a  single  writing  which  can  be  shown  to 
be  the  Milesian's  production.  Nevertheless  modern  re- 
views of  electrical  progress  seldom  fail  to  ascribe  to 
Thales  the  conception  of  a  soul  in  the  amber  as  well  as  in 
the  lodestone.  The  doubtful  foundation  of  this  resides  in 
a  single  sentence  in  the  so-called  life  of  Thales  with  which 
begins  the  "  Lives  and  Opinions  of  Eminent  Philoso- 
phers,'' written  by  Diogenes  Laertius.  L,aertius  is  sup- 
posed to  have  been  a  native  of  Laerte  in  Cilicia,  and  the 
time  when  he  lived,  judging  from  the  periods  of  the 

1  Herod.  :  i.  74,  75. 

2Todd  :  Total  Eclipses  of  the  Sun,  Boston,  1894. 


DIOGENES  LAERTIUS.  35 

writers  whom  lie  quotes,  appears  to  have  been  during  the 
last  part  of  the  second  century  of  our  era — or  in  other 
words,  about  as  far  distant  from  the  age  of  Thales  as  we 
are  from  that  of  William  the  Conqueror.  If,  according  to 
other  opinions,  he  did  not  live  until  the  time  of  Alexander 
Severus,  and  wrote  the  book  for  Julia,  the  consort  of  that 
emperor,  who  was  of  a  philosophical  and  platonic  turn  of 
mind,  there  is  still  a  wider  gap  between  him  and  the  an- 
cient Greek. 

The  sentence  which  he  gives  is: 

u  But  Aristotle  and  Hippias  say  that  he  attributed  souls 
also  to  lifeless  things,  forming  his  conjecture  from  the 
nature  of  the  magnet  and  the  amber." 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Aristotle  says  nothing  about  the 
amber,  and  that  he  should  have  knowingly  omitted  men- 
tion of  it  in  the  passage  above  quoted  is  difficult  to  believe. 
On  the  other  hand,  while  Plato,  in  the  Timseus  at  a  later 
period,  speaks  of  the  "marvels  that  are  observed  about  the 
attraction  of  amber  and  the  Heraclean  stone,"  he  does  not 
connect  Thales  with  them.  Hippias  was  a  traveling  Soph- 
ist, and  a  contemporary  of  Protagoras  and  Socrates,  but 
none  of  his  writings  are  extant. 

It  is  necessary  merely  to  glance  at  the  remarkable  col- 
lection of  stories  which  Laertius  has  gathered  about  Thales 
to  see  that  he  has  simply  brought  together  items  of  gossip 
and  tradition  which  had  been  accumulating  for  centuries. 

Apuleius,1  who  lived  either  contemporaneously  with  Laer- 
tius or  nearly  a  century  earlier,  gives  another  and  different 
category,  in  which  the  amber-soul  theory  is  ignored.  Add 
to  this  that  Laertius  refers  to  no  less  than  five  "  other  men 
of  the  name  of  Thales,"  including  at  least  one  "painter 
of  Sicyon,  a  great  man,"  and  none  unknown  to  fame,  a 
not  unnatural  suspicion  arises  that  the  biographies  of  all 
these  may  have  been  laid  under  contribution  for  the  delec- 
tation of  the  fair  Julia.  "All  those  letters  which  are  at- 
tributed by  Laertius  to  the  Philosophers,"  remarks  Julius 

1  Apuleius  :  Floridor,  361. 


36  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Scaliger,1  as  usual,  savagely,  "I  am  able  to  prove,  by 
many  arguments,  were  concocted  by  the  Greeks,  in  whom 
the  will  or  faculty  for  lying  never  failed." 

Let  me  now  recapitulate.  We  have  found  lack  of  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  the  Egyptians,  at  the  time  of  Thales, 
were  cognizant  of  the  magnet.  Therefore  it  may  be 
assumed  that  Thales  did  not  acquire  whatever  knowledge 
he  may  have  had  concerning  this  substance  from  Egypt- 
ian sources.  We  have  also  found  that  the  working  of  iron 
mines  in  Phrygia  was  of  great  antiquity,  that  magnetite 
ore  existed  there  and  in  Lydia,  and  probably  was  abund- 
antly disseminated  through  Asia  Minor.  So  also  it  appears 
that  the  magnet  was  exhibited  as  a  part  of  the  Samothra- 
cian  mysteries,  which  were  also  of  extremely  ancient 
origin.  It  is  not  unreasonable,  therefore,  to  conclude  that 
Thales'  knowledge  of  the  magnet  was  home  knowledge, 
and  that  his  doctrine  of  the  soul  inherent  therein,  was 
intended  to  be  in  direct  contrast  with  the  prevailing 
theories  fostered  by  the  priests  of  the  Cabiric  mysteries, 
namely,  that  the  stone  was  supernaturally  influenced. 

If  the  tradition  of  the  Syrian  women  is  older  than  the 
time  of  Thales,  it  may  be  presumed  that  the  amber  attrac- 
tion was  not  unfamiliar  to  him;  otherwise  I  have  encoun- 
tered no  direct  evidence  of  earlier  knowledge  of  it  than 
exists  in  the  Timseus  of  Plato,  and  Plato  lived  nearly  two 
centuries  after  Thales. 

The  explanation  given  by  Plato  excludes  all  idea  of  at- 
traction. "Moreover,"  says  the  philosopher,  "as  to  the 
flowing  water,  the  fall  of  the  thunderbolt,  and  the  marvels 
that  are  observed  about  the  attraction  of  amber  and  the 
Heraclean  stone  ;  in  none  of  these  cases  is  there  any  attrac- 
tion, but  he  who  investigates  truly,  will  find  that  such 
wonderful  phenomena  are  attributable  to  the  non-existence 
of  a  vacuum,  taken  in  combination  with  the  fact,  that  these 

1  Ep.,  306.  See  also  Blount :  Censura  Celebriorum  Authorum.  Geneva, 
1710,  158. 


PRE-SOCRATIC   PHILOSOPHY.  37 

substances  are  forced  round  and  round  and  are  changed 
and  pass  severally  into  their  own  place  by  composition  and 
divination."1 

It  must  be  admitted,  however,  that  even  if  Thales  had 
been  cognizant  of  the  amber  phenomenon,  it  was  not 
logically  necessary,  from  his  point  of  view,  to  include  it 
specifically  under  his  theory  based  upon  the  attraction  of 
the  lodestone  :  and  hence  lack  of  mention  does  not,  on  his 
part,  imply  lack  of  knowledge.  All  physical  philosophy 
as  it  stood  before  the  age  of  Socrates  was  an  obscure,  semi- 
poetical  speculation  as  to  first  principles.  It  neither 
sought  to  explain  nor  to  clear  up  phenomenal  experiences, 
but  often  added  new  difficulties  of  its  own,  frequently  con- 
tradicting or  discrediting  experience.  In  the  words  of 
Grote,  "Thales  and  his  immediate  successors  (like  their 
predecessors,  the  poets),  accommodated  their  hypotheses  to 
intellectual  impulses  and  aspirations  of  their  own,  with 
little  anxiety  about  giving  satisfaction  to  others,  still  less 
about  avoiding  inconsistencies  or  meeting  objections.  Each 
of  them  fastened  upon  some  one  grand  or  imposing  general- 
ization (set  forth  often  in  verse),  which  he  stretched  as  far 
as  it  would  go  by  various  comparisons  and  illustrations,  but 
without  any  attention  or  deference  to  adverse  facts  or  rea- 
sonings. Provided  that  his  general  point  of  view  wras  im- 
pressive to  the  imagination,  as  the  old  religious  scheme  of 
personal  agencies  was  to  the  vulgar,  he  did  not  concern 
himself  abouj:  the  condition  of  proof  or  disproof." 2 

Plato  while  denying  the  attraction  of  the  amber  never- 
theless links  its  effect  with  that  of  the  magnet;  but 
as  to  what  it  acts  upon  or  wherein  its  action  differs,  if 
at  all,  from  that  of  the  Heraclean  stone,  he  is  silent. 

1  Plato  :  Timaeus,  80.     Cicero  refers  to  this  in  the  De  Natura  Deorum, 
and  so  does  Timaeus  of  Locri,  reputed  to  have  been  Plato's  teacher,  but 
whose  sole  extant  work  is  probably  an  abridgment  of  the  Platonic  Dia- 
logues.     (Timaeus  Locrensis,    ed.  Serrani,   p.  102.      See,   also,  Smith: 
Dict'y  of  Greek  and  Roman  Antiquities,  art.     Timaeus.) 

2  Grote  :  Aristotle.     London,  1872;    Vol.  II.,  chap.  XL,  p.  154. 


38  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Where  then  does  first  explicit  proof  of  the  amber  phenom- 
enon, in  fact,  exist? 

In  the  spring  of  B.  C.,  334,  Alexander  of  Macedor 
crossed  the  Hellespont  and  began  the  famous  campaign 
which  left  him  master  of  all  the  countries  between  the 
Danube  and  the  Ganges.  At  about  the  same  time,  Aris- 
totle, who  had  been  his  preceptor,  established  a  school  at 
the  L,ykeum  at  Athens,  and  began  to  gather  collections  of 
plants,  animals  and  minerals,  wherewith  he  illustrated  his 
lectures,  delivered  while  walking  up  and  down  the  leafy 
paths  which  wound  through  the  adjacent  gardens.  In 
this  undertaking  he  found  in  his  powerful  disciple  a  most 
willing  ally — for  Alexander  not  only  contributed  a  vast 
sum  of  money  for  the  purchase  of  rare  objects,  but  em- 
ployed thousands  of  men  to  collect  and  transport  to  Athens 
all  that  was  strange  to  the  Greeks  in  the  distant  countries 
which  had  yielded  to  his  arms.1 

To  the  gathering  of  this  stupendous  mass  of  material 
may  be  traced  three  results  of  the  highest  import;  first  the 
acquisition  of  the  multitudinous  physical  facts  which  fill 
the  Aristotelian  treatises  on  natural  sciences.  Second,  the 
foreshadowing  of  the  inductive  method  of  reasoning. 
Third,  the  production  by  Theophrastus,  the  Lesbian,  of  a 
history  of  stones,  probably  based  directly  upon  the  study 
of  Aristotle's  collections. 

I  have  said  that  Aristotle  foreshadowed  the  inductive 
theory.  As  any  intellectual  rise,  coincident  in  time  with 
that  of  this  great  principle,  must  have  been  more  or  less 
controlled  by  the  mightier  mental  advancement,  some  ex- 
planation of  this  statement  is  perhaps  here  necessary. 
Because  Aristotle  gathered  as  has  been  stated  a  vast  mass 
of  facts,  it  has  been  frequently  maintained  that  the  pro- 
cess which  Bacon  calls  that  "double  scale  or  ladder,  as- 
cendent and  descendent,  ascending  from  experiments  to 

1Grote:  Aristotle,  i.  i.  12. 


THEOPHRASTUS.  39 

the  invention  of  causes  and  descending  from  causes  to  the 
invention  of  new  experiments,"1  was  not  only  foreshad- 
owed but  conceived  by  the  Stagirite;  even  more  than  this, 
elaborated  into  a  logical  tool  ready  for  the  world's  use. 
This  view  I  have  not  taken.  Although  the  duality  of  the 
complex  operation,  whereof  induction  is  the  first  and  de- 
duction the  second  half,  as  well  as  the  especial  necessity 
for  the  inductive  part,  was  recognized  by  Aristotle  both  in 
actual  declarations  and  by  his  unwearied  industry  in  col- 
lecting facts ;  although,  moreover,  he  perceived  that  all 
science  or  theory  must  rest  upon  this  foundation  as  a 
whole,  nevertheless  he  devotes  himself  only  to  the  analysis 
and  to  the  formulating  of  the  rules  of  the  deductive  part. 
Thus  it  was,  as  Grote2  points  out,  that  science  afterwards 
became  disjoined  from  experience  and  was  presented  as 
consisting  in  deduction  alone,  while  everything  not  de- 
duction became  degraded  into  un-scientific  experience. 
Of  this  last,  abundant  examples  in  the  field  under  study 
will  hereafter  be  encountered,  while  on  the  other  hand, 
we  shall  find  the  true  inductive  method  practically  ap- 
plied in  the  same  field  long  before  Francis  Bacon  trump- 
eted its  importance  to  the  world. 

Theophrastus  was  born  B.  C.  372,  and  died  B.  C.  287, 
surviving  Aristotle  by  thirty-five  years,  and  succeeding 
him  as  teacher  at  the  Lykeum.  .  His  history  describes  what 
he  calls  the  stones  and  the  earths,  in  contradistinction  to 
the  metals;  the  first,  as  he  supposed,  being  derived  from 
the  earth  itself,  and  the  last  from  water.  He  refers  not 
merely  to  stones  indigenous  to  Greece,  but  to  others,  of 
foreign  origin,  such  as  the  alabaster  of  Egypt,  the  pumice 
of  Sicily,  the  carbuncle  of  Carthage,  Massilla,  and  of  the 
Nile  cataracts  and  Syene,  the  emeralds  of  Tyre,  Cyprus, 
and  Bactria,  the  pearls  from  the  Indies  and  the  shores  of 
the  Red  Sea,  the  gypsum  of  Syria,  the  cinnabar  of  Spain, 
and  so  on,  through  a  category  so  extensive,  and  represent- 

1De  Augmentis,  vii.  i. 

2  Grote  :  Aristotle  i.  c.  289;  c.  160. 


4O  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

ing  the  minerals  of  so  many  different  and  distant  countries, 
'that  little  doubt  can  remain  that  he  wrote  the  book  with 
the  collections  of  Aristotle  directly  before  him.  Here,  for 
the  first  time,  is  given  definite  information  concerning  the 
amber  attraction.  "Amber,"  he  says,  "is  a  stone.  It  is 
dug  out  of  the  earth  in  Liguria,  and  has  a  power  of  attrac- 
tion. It  is  said  to  attract  not  only  straws  and  small  pieces 
of  sticks,  but  even  copper  and  iron,  if  they  are  beaten  into 
thin  pieces." 

Then,  bringing  the  amber  and  the  lodestone  into  the 
salne  attracting  class,  he  adds  : 

"But  the  greatest  and  most  evident  attractive  quality  is 
in  that  stone  which  attracts  iron.  But  that  is  a  scarce 
stone  and  found  in  but  few  places.  It  ought,  however, 
to  be  ranked  with  these  stones,  as  it  possesses  a  like 
quality." 

It  is  a  significant  circumstance  that  there  is  no  sugges- 
tion of  the  soul  animating  the  stones  contained  in  Theo- 
phrastus'  terse  and  practical  account  of  their  qualities. 
Their  concretion,  he  says,  is  due  to  heat  or  cold,  some 
kinds  of  stones  being  occasioned  by  the  one  cause,  others 
by  the  other ;  they  differ  likewise  in  the  matter  and  man- 
ner of  the  affluxes  of  the  terrestrial  particles  from  which 
they  are  formed,  and  likewise  they  have  "powers"  of 
their  concreted  masses,  which  are  different  from  their 
qualities  of  hardness,  color,  density,  etc.,  and  which  in- 
clude their  capacity  for  acting  upon  other  bodies  or  being 
subject  or  not  subject  to  be  acted  upon  by  them.  Thus, 
he  points  out,  some  are  fusible,  others  not  so,  and  others 
can  color  water  or  cause  petrifaction,  and  among  these 
powers  is  included  the  attractive  quality. 

There  is  no  regarding  this  as  anything  but  a  strictly 
scientific  and  material  view  of  the  subject,  which  if  taken 
in  Aristotle's  time,  may  perhaps  account  for  that  philoso- 
pher's doubtful  and  cautious  dealing  with  Thales'  theory 
of  the  prevailing  soul.  The  calm  and  terse  enumeration 
of  physical  characteristics,  and  the  theories  and  classifica- 


THE   lyYNCURIUM.  41 

tions  based  thereon,  are  as  far  distant  from  the  crude 
spiritual  conception  of  Thales  as  the  last  is  removed  from 
the  older  belief  in  the  direct  interposition  of  the  gods.  It 
is  not  difficult  even  to  imagine  that  Theophrastus  looked 
upon  the  Milesian  doctrine  with  something  of  the  disdain 
with  which  the  modern  astronomer  regards  the  planetary 
speculations  of  the  astrologers,  or  the  modern  chemist  the 
theories  which  once  gave  rise  to  the  hope  of  achieving  the 
transmutation  of  metals. 

Besides  referring  to  the  attractive  qualities  of  the  lode- 
stone  and  the  amber,  Theophrastus,  for  the  first  time, 
announces  the  existence  of  a  third  substance  having  iden- 
tically the  same  properties  as  the  amber,  which  he  calls 
Lapis  lynctirius  or  lynx  stone.  He  describes  this  as  used 
by  engravers  as  the  emerald  is  used,  and  that  it  has  a  very 
solid  texture,  in  confirmation  of  which,  and  also  of  the 
statement  of  the  identity  of  its  attractive  quality  with  that 
of  amber,  he  appeals  to  Diocles,  an  eminent  physician  of 
Charysta,  who  is  said  to  have  ranked  second  only  to  Hip- 
pocrates, but  of  whose  works  only  a  few  fragments  are 
known. 

It  is,  he  says,  pellucid,  of  a  fire  color,  and  is  found  by 
digging;  and  then,  with  some  detail,  he  declares  it  to  be 
derived  from  the  secretions  of  the  lynx — whence  its 
name. 

The  precise  nature  of  the  lyncurium  has  long  been  a 
bone  of  contention,  and  speculations  concerning  it  have 
been  voluminous.  The  wrangle,  occurring  as  it  did  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  is  representative  of  the  intellectual  condition 
of  the  times.  From  discussions  as  to  what  Theophrastus 
meant,  the  commentators  fell  to  arguing  about  what  they 
themselves  meant,  and  the  gloss  writers  of  one  century  ex- 
patiated upon  the  signification  of  the  language  of  gloss 
writers  of  the  preceding  century,  and  words  were  heaped 
on  words,  until  all  sight  of  the  original  subject-matter 
seemed  to  be  lost.  This  continued  until  the  end  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  when  the  tourmaline  and  its 


42  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

attractive  effect,  when  heated,  became  known,  and  there- 
upon the  contest  ended  as  illogically  as  it  had  continued, 
in  the  generally  accepted  notion  that  it  was  the  tourmaline 
to  which  Theophrastus  referred. 

Nevertheless  there  is  nothing  in  the  statement  of  Theo- 
phrastus to  warrant  any  such  inference.  He  says  that  the 
stone  has  the  same  attractive  properties  as  the  amber,  but 
not  that  these  are  excited  by  heating  instead  of  by  attri- 
tion. The  amber,  he  states,  conies  from  Liguria,  one 
boundary  of  which  was  the  Eridanus  or  Po  river,  on  the 
banks  of  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Greeks,  from  the 
time  of  Herodotus,  erroneously  supposed  the  resin  to  be 
found.  Long  before  the  time  of  Theophrastus,  the  Ligure 
or  Ligurian  stone  was  well  known.  In  both  the  original 
Mosaic  version  of  the  Scriptures  and  in  the  Septuagint,  the 
uligure"  is  the  seventh  stone  in  the  breastplate  of  the 
high  priest,1  and  it  is  likewise  the  seventh  stone  in  the 
covering  of  the  King  of  Tyre2  in  the  Septuagint,  though 
not  in  the  original.  It  may  be,  therefore,  that  confusion 
was  caused  by  the  similarly  sounding  names  of  the  Ligure 
or  Ligurian  stone,  which  was  the  amber,  with  the  Lyngur- 
ian  stone  derived  from  the  lynx — a  substance  which  Pliny 
denounces  as  wholly  mythical  and  non-existing.3 

1  Exodus  xxxiii.  17-20.  2Ezek.  xxviii.  13. 

3  Pliny  :  lib.  xxxvii.  c.  13.  Marbodeus,  Archbishop  of  Remies,  has 
on  the  title  page  of  his  poem  on  Gems,  attributed  to  the  ancient  Arabian 
author  Evax,  a  picture  of  the  Jewish  high  priest  wearing  the  breastplate, 
one  stone  of  which  is  marked  "  lincurius,"  and  in  his  commentary  he 
gives  the  word  as  "lyngurius"  (Marbodeus  Gallus,  Cologne,  1539,  p. 
39).  Erasmus  in  his  commentary  on  St.  Jerome,  says  that  "lyngurius" 
and  "ligurius"  are  the  same  thing,  and  so  does  Dioscorides  (Lib.  37.  3). 
Camillus  Leonardus  (The  Mirror  of  Stones,  Venice,  1502,  Eng.  Trans., 
London,  1750)  notes  the  "lychinus"  or  "lychnites"  as  an  "Indian  gem 
red  in  color,"  and  mentions  two  species,  one  of  which,  purple  in  color, 
being  heated  by  the  sun  or  by  friction,  attracts  straws.  This  suggests 
of  course  the  tourmaline.  But  to  the  "lyncurius"  or  "lyncis"  he  at- 
tributes no  attractive  quality,  and  he  further  notes  the  "  ligurius,"  which 
he  says  is  ;'like  the  electorius  and  draws  straws."  lolinus  (lib.  iii., 
Utrecht,  1689,  p.  59)  agrees  with  Leonardus  in  defining  the  "lychuites," 


THE   LYNCURIUM.  43 

The  weight  of  opinion  of  the  old  writers  is  to  the  effect 
that  the  lyncurium  and  the  amber  were  the  same  thing. 
And  so  the  lynx  stone  may  be  relegated  to  a  place  in  that 
cloud  of  delusions  which  always  has  darkened  and  probably 
always  will  obscure  the  path  of  science.  For  the  long  dis- 
pute concerning  it,  the  antiquarian  may  find  some  pleasure 
in  substituting  the  question  whether  Theophrastus  erred 
or  whether  the  stone  had  its  true  origin  in  the  ignorance 
of  that  ancient  bibliophile,  Apellikon  of  Teos,  who  found 
the  original  manuscripts  of  the  philosopher  nearly  de- 
stroyed after  some  two  centuries'  exposure  to  the  damp 
and  worms  of  the  cellar  of  the  heirs  of  Neletis,  and  pro- 
ceeded to  fill  up  the  gaps  after  his  own  fashion.1 

but  says  nothing  about  its  attraction  when  heated.  De  Boot  (Gem.  et 
Lap.  Hist.,  Leyden,  1636)  declares  that  "lychnites"  is  a  kind  of  marble, 
and  ascribes  no  attractive  power  to  it,  and  gives  the  "lyncurius"  as 
clear  like  amber,  drawing  straws  and  light  bodies  in  the  same  way.  See 
Aldrovandus,  Musaeum  Metallicum,  Bologna,  1636,  p.  405;  also  Agricola, 
Delia  Natura  de  le  Cose  Fossili.  Lib.  IV.,  Venice,  1549,  p.  236. 

JStrabo,  xiii.,  609. 

NOTE. — If  a  third  substance,  having  the  same  attractive  quality  as  the 
amber,  was  known  to  the  ancients,  it  was  probably  jet— a  species  of  lig- 
nite resembling  cannel  coal,  but  harder  and  susceptible  of  a  high  polish. 
It  does  not  seem  possible,  however,  to  resolve  that  doubt,  owing  to  the 
many  kinds  of  coal  and  other  fossil  deposits  which  not  only  old  writers 
but  even  modern  commentators  constantly  confuse.  Theophrastus 
speaks  of  a  material  which  is  plainly  anthracite  coal,  and  Pliny  (xxxvi. 
18),  of  the  Gagates,  his  description  of  which  answers  generally  to  that 
of  jet;  but  neither  author  mentions  any  phenomenon  similar  to  that  of 
the  amber  as  pertaining  to  it.  Later  writers  apply  the  word  "gagates" 
to  almost  any  black  bituminous  material,  though  they  commonly  mean 
"jet "  by  the  term.  Leonardus  regards  the  gagate  as  another  species  of 
amber — "black  amber" — in  contradistinction  to  yellow,  and  he  describes 
it  as  "black,  light,  dry  and  lucid,  not  transparent,  and  if  put  into  fire 
has,  as  it  were,  the  smell  of  pitch.  Being  heated  with  rubbing  it  attracts 
straws  and  chaff."  Marbodeus  gives  almost  the  same  account  and  states 
that  it  is  found  in  Britain,  where  it  is  still  obtained  in  the  tertiary  clays 
along  the  Yorkshire  coast.  This  unfortunate  confusion  of  yellow  amber 
and  jet,  probably  first  due  to  Leonardus,  has  rendered  it  impossible  to 
tell,  from  the  references  to  amber  attraction  by  the  writers  of  the  six- 
teenth and  even  of  the  seventeenth  century,  which  substance  is  meant. 


44  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Mythology,  the  controlling  factor  in  the  world's  intel- 
lectual progress,  had  given  way  to  philosophy,  and  now 
philosophy  in  its  turn  was  beginning  to  yield  its  power 
into  the  hands  of  science. 

The  first  great  university  of  Alexandria,  begun  under 
Alexander  the  Great,  flourished  under  the  patronage  of 
the  Ptolemies  for  nearly  four  centuries.  It  was  the  gath- 
ering place  for  philosophers  from  every  part  of  the  world. 
Its  students  at  one  time  numbered  fourteen  thousand  souls 
and  its  libraries  contained  seven  hundred  thousand  vol- 
umes. 

Here  were  made  the  discoveries  of  Archimedes  in 
mechanics,  of  Euclid  and  Apollonius  Pergseus  in  mathe- 
matics, of  Hipparchus  in  astronomy  and  with  the  selopile 
of  Hero,  here  began  the  steam  engine.  All  of  this  great 
work  was  done  before  the  year  150  B.  C.  We  need  only 
compare  the  category  of  Hero's  inventions  with  the  single 
material  notion  of  Thales,  to  perceive  the  radical  change 
in  thought  which  had  occurred.  It  is  the  contrast  of  the 
force-pump  and  the  water-soul.  It  was  not  the  crude  and 
imperfect  classifications  of  Aristotle  which  accomplished 
this.  The  inductive  theory  in  that  stage  of  the  world's 
history  could  not  have  established  itself,  not  merely  for 
want  of  knowledge  of  a  sufficiency  of  facts  which  would 
demonstrate  its  truth  in  any  particular  instance,  but  also 
because  there  was  no  group  of  natural  facts  which  could 
be  clearly  seen,  unobscured  by  mists  of  attending  specu- 
lation and  superstition. 

Amid  all  this  activity  the  progress  which  was  made  in 
knowledge  of  the  amber  and  of  the  lodestone  was  very 
small.  Pliny1  has  the  dubious  assertion  that  the  architect 
Timochares  began  to  erect  a  vaulted  roof  of  lodestone  'in 

Singularly  enough,  as  we  shall  see  in  dealing  with  the  first-named  period, 
it  appears  not  at  all  unlikely  that  the  English  were  then  much  more 
familiar  with  the  attraction  of  jet  than  they  were  with  that  of  amber. 

1  Pliny  :  lib.  xxxiv.  42.  Vitruvius  :  De  Archit.,  lib.  iv.  ;  time,  circa 
31  B.  C. 


MAGNETIC  SUSPENSION.  45 

the  Temple  of  Arsinoe  (wife  and  sister  of  Ptolemy  Phila- 
delplms)  at  Alexandria,  in  order  that  the  iron  statue  of  the 
queen  might  have  the  appearance  of  hanging  suspended 
in  the  air.  But  this  work  was  never  accomplished,  says 
the  historian,  because  both  the  king  and  the  architect 
died. 

This  is  the  same  story  which,  as  we  have  seen  in  the  pre- 
ceding chapter,  the  Jewish  writers  tell  of  the  suspended 
golden  calves  of  Jeroboam,  and  the  world  has  never  been 
able  to  get  rid  of  it.  Again  and  again  has  it  been  pointed 
out,  for  a  thousand  years  and  more,  that  no  piece  of  iron 
can  be  balanced  in  the  air  by  magnetic  attractions  oppo- 
sitely exerted;  but  the  vitality  of  the  falsehood  seems  even 
greater  than  that  of  the  refutations.  At  the  same  time 
there  can  be  little  doubt  that  in  some  temple,  and  prob- 
ably one  in  Egypt,  and  at  about  the  time  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Alexandria,  there  was  an  object  held  up  apparently 
by  no  other  support  than  magnetic  attraction;  and  very 
probably  held  down  by  a  wire  or  cord  invisible  to  the 
spectators.  Ausonius1  directly  disputes  the  statement  of 
Pliny  that  the  construction  of  a  magnetic  vault  was  aban- 
doned. St.  Augustine,2  St.  Isidore,8  and  Cedrinus4  all 
affirm  the  existence  of  the  iron  statue  suspended  between 
ceiling  and  pavement.  Clement5  of  Alexandria  causes  the 
Sibyl  to  sing  of  "  thou,  Serapis  lying  amid  rude  stones, 
thou  fallest  most  miserable  in  the  ruins  of  Egypt,"  and 
his  scholiast,  Clycas,  interprets  the  "lapides  rudos  multos" 
as  magnets,  of  which,  he  says,  "many  were  used  in  the 
temple  of  Serapis  on  all  sides  of  an  iron  sun.n  So  that 
the  statue  of  Arsinoe,  in  her  own  temple  never  completed, 
may  have  become  confused  with  an  iron  sun  which  did 

1  Eidyllum  x,  Mosella,  vers.  314,  320 ;  time,  circa  390  A.  D. 

2  De  Civ.  Dei,  lib.,  21,  6;  time,  circa  415  A.  D. 
"Originum,  lib.  xvi.,  cap.  4;  time,  circa  595  A.  D. 

*Geo.  Cedrinus  :  Compend.  Hist.,  c.  267  ;  time,  circa  1057  A.  D.     Also 
Suidas  :  Lex.  cit.  sup.  Art.  Magnet ;  time,  circa  1081  A.  D. 
5  In  Protreptico,  15 ;  time,  circa  192  A,  D. 


46  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

exist  ill  the  Serapeum;  and  that  there  were,  in  fact,  two 
such  different  things  Ruffinus1  and  others  assert. 

But  note  the  expansive  character  of  the  tradition,  and 
the  variety  of  its  transmutations.  The  horse  of  Bellero- 
phon,  on  the  island  of  Rhodes,  says  the  venerable  Bede,  2 
weighed  5000  pounds,  and  was  suspended  by  magnets. 
Martial3  says  that  the  effigy  of  Mausoleus  was  held  over 
his  tomb  in  like  manner.  As  the  story  grew  older,  King 
Theodoric,*  in  a  letter  to  Boesius,  applies  it  to  a  statue  of 
Cupid  in  the  temple  of  Diana  of  Ephesus.  And  then  last, 
but  not  least,  it  reached  its  final  resting  place  in  the  legend 
of  Mahomet's  coffin.  Since  this  myth  furnishes  the  sub- 
stance of  one  of  the  most  common  metaphors  in  use,  the 
facts  on  which  it  rests,  or  rather  does  not  rest,  are  worth 
stating. 

After  Mahomet's  death,  the  Meccans  and  Medinans  dis- 
puted possession  of  the  body.  Still  another  faction  wished 
the  sepulchre  to  be  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  proper  place  of 
burial  for  all  prophets.  Finally  Abu-Bekr  interfered  and 
announced  that  he  had  heard  Mahomet  himself  during  his 
life  direct  the  selection  of  Medina.  Thereupon  a  vault 
was  dug  beneath  the  spot  where  stood  the  bed  on  which 
the  prophet  slept,  in  the  house  of  Ayesha.  In  order  to 
keep  the  coffin  clear  of  the  floor  of  the  vault,  it  was  sup- 
ported on  nine  bricks,  the  earth  being  heaped  about  the 
sides.  That  is  the  entire  extent  to  which  the  coffin  was 
suspended  in  the  air  —  namely,  by  nine  bricks  put  under  it.5 


:  Aquil.  lib.,  vi.  Histor.,  c.  22;  time,  circa.  390  A.  D.  S. 
Prosperus  :  De  Praedicatione,  3,  c.  38  ;  time,  circa  446  A.  D. 

2  Beda.  :  de  Sept.  Mirac.  Mundi  ;  time,  circa  703  A.  D. 

8  Lib.  De  Spectaculis,  time,  circa  78  A.  D. 

*Cassiodor.  :  Variat  Lib.,  i,  Ep.  45;  time,  circa  500  A.  D. 

r%Gagnier:  Histoire  de  la  Vie  de  Mahomet. 

Gibbon's  note  (the  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  chap.  50) 
as  to  this  is  as  follows:  The  Greeks  and  Latins  have  invented  and  pro- 
pagated the  vulgar  and  ridiculous  story  that  Mahomet's  iron  tomb  is 
suspended  in  the  air  at  Mecca  (cfjfia  f*Ereupit;6[j.evov,  Laonicus  Chalcon- 
dyles  :  De  Rebus  Turcicis,  1.  iii.  66)  by  the  action  of  equal  and  potent 


LUCRETIUS  ON  THE  MAGNET.  47 

The  Mahometans  have  always  ridiculed  the  tradition,  and 
certainly  it  is  exceedingly  difficult,  short  of  assuming  it 
to  have  been  made  out  of  whole  cloth,  to  find  any  basis 
for  it  in  the  facts  above  stated.  There  is,  however,  an- 
other version,  credited  to  one  Bremond,1  an  indefinite 
"traveler  of  Marseilles,"  who  asserts  that  he  saw  "above 
Mahomet's  tomb  a  magnet,  two  feet  long  and  three  fingers 
thick,  from  which  is  suspended  a  golden  crescent  enriched 
with  jewels,  by  means  of  a  big  nail  in  the  middle;"  but 
this  obviously  lacks  the  essential  feature  of  the  something 
being  held  floating  in  the  air  by  magnetic  attraction. 


Meanwhile,  the  knowledge  of  the  magnet  had  spread 
beyond  the  confines  of  Greece  and  Asia  Minor,  in  other 
directions  than  to  the  southward.  It  had  moved  to  the 
west  and  to  Rome.  The  Roman,  L,ucretius,2  in  that  great- 
est of  all  didactic  poems,  "On  the  Nature  of  Things," 
tells  of  the  Samothracian  rings  as  still  existing  (95  to  52 
B.  C.),  and  as  having  been  seen  by  himself. 

"You  may  see,  sometimes,"  he  says,  "five  or  more  sus- 
pended in  succession  and  tossing  about  in  the  light  airs, 
one  always  hanging  down  from  one  and  attached  to  its 
lower  side,  and  each  in  turn,  one  from  the  other,  experi- 
encing the  binding  power  of  the  stone  :  with  such  a  con- 
tinued current  its  force  flies  through  all." 

Here  is  the  first  suggestion  of  a  moving  current  travers- 
ing a  conductor,  in  centra-distinction  to  a  soul  or  virtue 
merely  pervading  the  object.  The  distinction  between  the 

lodestones  (Diet,  de  Biyle.  Mahom.  Rem.  E  E.  FF.).  Without  any 
philosophical  inquiries,  it  may  suffice  that,  i.  The  prophet  was  not  buried 
at  Mecca  ;  and  2.  That  his  tomb  at  Medina,  which  has  been  visited  by 
millions,  is  placed  on  the  ground.  (Reland  :  de  Relig.  Moham.,  1.  ii.,  c. 
19,  p.  209-211.) 

1  Azuni  :  Dissertation  sur  la  Boussole,  Paris,  1810,  p.  27. 

2  Lucretius :    De  Natura  Rerum,    Book  6.     Translated    by  H.  A.  J. 
Munro.     Cambridge,  1866. 


48  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

magnetic  current  flowing  through  the  rings  and  its  effect 
exerted  upon  the  space  around  the  magnet  is  also  drawn, 
for  in  addition  to  the  continuing  current,  Lucretius  says 
that  there  streams  from  the  stone  "very  many  seeds,  or  a 
current,  if  you  will,  which  dispels,  with  blows,  all  the  air 
which  lies  between  the  iron  and  the  stone,"  thus  produc- 
ing, as  he  imagines,  a  vacuum  in  front  of  the  iron,  into 
which  the  air  pressure  "thrusts  and  pushes  it  on,  as  the 
wind  a  ship  and  its  sails ;"  and  on  this  theory  he  accounts 
for  attraction.  Furthermore,  as  Lucretius  describes  his 
"streams"  as  continuously  circulating  around  the  lode- 
stone,  the  vortex  magnetic  theory  of  Descartes  is  here 
curiously  foreshadowed,  if  not  actually  suggested. 

Up  to  this  time,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is  nothing  in  the 
ancient  authors  indicating  any  knowledge  by  them  of  the 
repulsive  effect  of  the  magnet.  It  is  always  spoken  of  as 
drawing  the  iron.  When,  however,  two  magnets  are 
brought  together,  attraction  occurs  only  when  their  &;zlike 
poles  are  presented  to  one  another — the  north  pole  attract- 
ing the  south,  and  vice  versa.  But  if  like  poles  are 
approximated,  just  the  opposite  result  happens,  and  the 
magnets  mutually  repel.  It  is  immaterial  whether  two 
lodestones,  or  one  lodestone  and  a  magnetized  piece  of  iron, 
or  two  magnetized  pieces  of  iron,  such,  for  instance,  as 
two  compass  needles,  be  employed  ;  the  result  is  always 
the  same.  Hence,  as  iron  that  has  been  brought  into  con- 
tact with  the  lodestone  (as  was  the  case  with  the  Samo- 
thracian  rings)  very  readily  becomes  magnetized  by 
induction  from  the  stone,  it  is  evident  that  there  was  a 
possibility  of  two  rings  having  become  magnetized  in  this 
way,  being  accidentally  approximated  with  their  like  poles 
facing  one  another,  and  under  conditions  when  one  or  the 
other  of  them  might  be  free  to  move  under  the  repulsive 
force.  Whatever  may  have  been  observed  as  to  this  at  an 
earlier  time  is  not  known  ;  but  an  unmistakable  and,  prob- 
ably, the  first  recorded  recognition  of  the  phenomenon  ap- 
pears in  the  poem  of  Lucretius. 


THE  GERM   OF  THE  ELECTRIC  MOTOR.  49 

" Sometimes,  too,"  he  says,  "it  happens  that  the  nature 
of  iron  is  repelled  from  this  stone,  being  in  the  habit  of 
flying  from  and  following  it  in  turns." 

The  allusion  is  now,  not  to  the  current  which  flows 
through  the  rings,  but  to  the  influence  of  the  stone  upon 
the  iron,  merely  placed  in  its  neighborhood — or,  as  we 
now  say,  in  its  "field  offeree"  and  not  in  contact  with  it. 
He  is  describing  the  turning  of  the  ring,  so  as  first  to  pre- 
sent one  pole  to  the  lodestone  and  then  the  other,  for  a 
ring  usually  has  its  poles  located  diametrically  opposite 
each  other.  If  the  ring  were  supported  so  that  its  poles 
could  be  thus  alternately  presented  to  one  and  the  same 
pole  of  the  lodestone,  then,  whenever  the  ring  pole  was  of 
the  same  name  as  that  of  the  lodestone  [as  north  pole  to 
north  pole,  or  south  pole  to  south  pole],  the  ring  would  be 
repelled,  and  would  swing  away  from  the  lodestone ;  but 
if  the  ring  pole  were  of  different  name  from  that  of  the 
lodestone  [as  north  pole  to  south  pole,  or  south  pole  to 
north  pole],  then  the  ring  would  be  drawn  to  the  lode- 
stone,  and  if  the  latter  were  moved,  the  ring  would  follow 
it.  Hence,  by  turning  the  ring  to  and  fro,  as  on  an  axis, 
it  could  thus  be  made  to  swing  or  vibrate  backwards  or 
forwards  in  front  of  the  lodestone,  or,  as  Lucretius  ex- 
plains, the  ring  will  fly  from  or  follow  the  stone  "in 
turns."  Here  is  the  first  foreshadowing  of  the  motion  of 
an  armature — for  such  is  the  ring — before  the  pole  of  a 
magnet,  by  change  in  relative  polarity  of  magnet  and 
armature ;  in  the  light  of  present  knowledge  we  might 
even  regard  this  as  the  advent  into  the  world  of  the  con- 
version of  the  energy  of  electricity  into  mechanical  motion, 
and  the  germ  of  the  electric  motor. 

Lucretius  says,  further,  that  he  has  seen  the  Samothra- 
cian  rings  "jump  up"  when  the  magnet  stone  had  been 
"placed  under."  It  is  unquestionably  true  that  in  a  sus- 
pended chain  of  rings,  as  he  describes,  the  pole  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  lowest  ring  would  be  of  the  same  name  as  that 
of  the  pole  of  the  supporting  lodestone — say,  north.  If 


50  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

now,  the  same  or  north  pole  of  a  second  lodestone  were 
brought  up  to  the  lower  part  of  that  last  ring,  then  that 
ring  would  be  repelled  and  "jump  up  "—exactly  as  Lu- 
cretius says. 

Even  more  remarkable  than  this  is  his  statement  that 
iron  filings  uwill  rave  within  brass  basins"  when  the 
stone  is  placed  beneath.  This  was  the  first  perception  of 
the  field  of  force  about  a  magnet  by  noting  not  merely  the 
effect  of  its  attraction  or  repulsion  exerted  upon  the  pole 
of  another  magnet  brought  into  it,  but  upon  loose  iron 
filings  free  to  dispose  themselves  therein  along  the  lines 
of  force.  Then,  under  the  astonished  gaze  of  the  poet, 
the  particles  of  metal  arranged  themselves  in  the  curious 
curves  of  the  magnetic  spectrum,  and  rose  like  bristles  in 
front  of  the  poles.  And  as  he  moved  the  stone  beneath 
the  brass  basin  which  held  them,  he  saw  them  fly  from  one 
side  of  it  to  the  other,  sometimes  grouping  themselves  for 
an  instant  in  dense  bunches,  then  leaping  apart  and  scat- 
tering all  so  incoherently  and  so  wildly,  that  it  is  small 
wonder  that  he  regarded  them  as  raving  in  their  frantic 
desire  to  break  away  from  the  mysterious  force.  We 
shall  find  the  performances  of  these  raving  iron  filings 
astonishing  the  philosophers  of  the  sixteenth  century  and 
remaining  always  a  puzzle  until  Faraday  and  Maxwell 
found  the  key  to  it  within  our  own  time. 

The  explanation  which  Lucretius  gives  of  magnetic  at- 
traction is  repeated  by  Plutarch1  who  wrote  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  later  and  who  applies  it  also  to  the  amber  attrac- 
tion. He  says,  "that  amber  attracts  none  of  those  things 
that  are  brought  to  it,  any  more  than  the  lodestone.  That 
stone  emits  a  matter  which  reflects  the  circumambient  air 
and  thereby  forms  a  void.  That  expelled  air  puts  in  mo- 
tion the  air  before  it,  which  making  a  circle  returns  to  the 
void  space,  driving  before  it  towards  the  lodestone,  the 
iron  which  it  meets  in  its  way."  He  then  proposes  a 

Plutarch  :  Platonic  Quaest.,  torn.  2. 


MAGNETIC   REPULSION.  51 

difficulty  "why  the  vortex  which  circulates  around  the 
lodestone  does  not  make  its  way  to  wood  or  stone  as  well 
as  iron,"  and,  again  like  Descartes,  answers,  that  "the 
pores  of  the  iron  have  an  analogy  to  the  particles  of  the 
vortex  circulating  about  the  lodestone  which  yields  them 
such  access  as  they  can  find  in  no  other  bodies  whose  pores 
are  differently  formed." 

Plutarch  also  refers  to  magnetic  repulsion  and  says  that 
"like  as  iron  drawn  by  a  stone  often  follows  it,  but  often 
also  is  turned  and  driven  away  in  the  opposite  direction, 
so  also  is  the  wholesome  good  and  regular  motion  of  the 
world." 

It  must  not  be  assumed,  because  of  the  interpretations 
which  it  is  possible  to  make  at  the  present  time  of  the 
magnetic  phenomena  mentioned  by  lyucretius,  that  any 
actual  knowledge  of  the  polarity  of  the  lodestone  existed 
in  his  day.  Not  until  centuries  later  did  this  come  to  the 
civilized  world. 

Even  when  in  course  of  time  the  recurrence  of  the  re- 
pelling effect  of  the  magnet  attracted  attention,  no  concep- 
tion of  polarity  resulted.  On  the  contrary,  it  was  for  a 
long  time  believed  that  the  stone  which  repelled  was  a 
totally  different  stone  from  that  which  attracted  iron. 
This  supposed  repelling  stone  is  described  for  the  first  time 
by  Pliny,1  who  calls  it  the  "theamedes"  and  says  that  it 
comes  from  "Ethiopia,  not  far  from  Zmiris."  For  the 
first  thirteen  .centuries  of  our  era,  belief  in  its  existence 
was  implicit.  It  served  conveniently  to  explain  mag- 
netic repulsion,  and  hence,  as  frequently  happens  in  such 
circumstances,  it  prevented  investigation  of  that  effect. 

For  discoveries  concerning  the  amber,  search  may  now 
be  made  through  many  centuries  in  vain.  Plato,  as  has 
been  stated,  had  linked  together  the  attraction  of  the 
amber  and  the  Heraclean  stone,  and  Epicurus  had  attrib- 
uted both  to  the  same  cause,  namely,  atoms  and  invisible 

1  Pliny:  lib.  xxxvi.  25. 


52  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

bodies  outwardly  projected  from  the  attracting  body  com- 
bining with  and  bringing  back  the  body  attracted.  That 
seems  to  have  convinced  the  Greeks  and  Romans  then, 
and  the  rest  of  the  world  for  the  ensuing  two  thousand 
years,  that  the  amber  and  the  magnet  were  interrelated  ; 
or,  at  all  events,  that  they  both  attracted  for  exactly  the 
same  reason,  and  therefore  nothing  was  to  be  gained  by 
looking  into  the  subject  further.  As  for  the  Egyptians,  it 
is  doubtful  whether  they  ever  brought  amber  into  exten- 
sive use  at  all,  before  quite  a  late  period  of  their  history. 
Only  a  few  amber  beads  have  been  found  in  their  tombs, 
and  these  last  were  of  the  2d  and  3d  centuries  of  our  era.1 

The  great  Greek  physician,  Asclepiades,2  recommends 
pills  of  amber  as  a  specific  for  hemorrhages,  and  that 
seems  to  be  the  first  medical  use  of  the  resin.  His  equally 
eminent  brother  of  Rome3  has  scant  mention  of  it  in  his 
great  work  on  materia  medica. 

All  that  the  civilized  world  had  learned  concerning  the 
lodestone  and  the  amber  has  now  been  in  substance  stated. 
It  is  briefly  summed  up  in  the  knowledge  of  the  attractive 
capacity  in  each,  of  the  ability  of  the  magnet  apparently  to 
transfer  its  powers  to  iron,  and  of  the  existence  of  (sup- 
posedly) a  kind  of  lodestone  by  which  iron  is  repelled. 

1  "  An  amber  necklace,  about  22  inches  long,  was  also  found  in  a  grave 
here— one-third  of  it — the  small  beads  only  were  kept  at  Bulak,  as  amber 
was  almost,  or  quite,  unknown  in  Egypt  before."  Tanis.  2d  Memoir. 
Egypt.  Explorat.  Fund.  W.  F.  Petrie.  London,  1889.  Per  contra 
Clemens  (Clem.  Alex.  Paedagog.  iii.  c.  2,)  speaks  of  the  sanctuary  in 
Egyptian  temples  as  shining  "with  gold,  silver  and  amber."  Possibly 
the  word  "amber  "  here  is  a  mistranslation  of  the  similar  term  for  the 
electrum  alloy.  See  Wilkinson :  Anc.  Egypt,  i.  246,  Boston,  1883. 

'l  Lib.,  vii.,  de  Coinp.  Med.     Time,  circa  200  A.  D. 

'Lib.  de  Simp.  Med.  See  for  this  and  preceding  reference,  Aldro- 
vandus,  Musaeum  Metallicum,  Bologna,  1648,  p.  415. 


CHAPTER  III. 

How  or  when  the  tendency  of  a  freely-suspended  mag- 
net to  set  itself  in  a  nearly  north  and  south  direction  was 
first  discovered  is  a  question,  the  answer  to  which  is  prob- 
ably forever  lost.  The  civilized  world  remained  in  igno- 
rance of  the  fact  for  nearly  eighteen  centuries  after  the 
attractive  effect  of  the  lodestone  had  become  well  known. 
Although,  as  I  have  already  stated,  it  is  not  impossible  to 
conjecture  that  the  phenomenon  was  familiar  to  the  an- 
cestors of  primitive  civilization,  who,  from  the  highlands 
of  Central  Asia,  dispersed  in  many  races  over  the  earth  ; 
yet  the  knowledge  came  to  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages 
anew,  through  the  invention  of  the  first  and  greatest  of 
electrical  instruments — the  mariner's  compass  ;  first,  in  its 
utilization  of  the  mysterious  force  existing  in  the  magnet ; 
greatest,  in  that  it  has  contributed  more  than  any  other 
product  of  human  intelligence  to  the  progress  and  welfare 
of  mankind. 

The  obscurity  which  veils  the  discovery  of  the  under- 
lying principle  of  the  compass  in  the  remote  past  seems  to 
extend  to  all  the  circumstances  in  which  that  contrivance 
originated.  It  has  been  ascribed  to  the  Greeks,  the  Phoe- 
nicians, the  Etruscans,  the  Egyptians  and  the  Chinese. 
It  is  said  to  have  first  appeared  on  the  ships  of  mediaeval 
Italy,  and  yet  to  have  been  first  known  in  mediaeval 
France.  It  is  also  claimed  as  German,  Arabian,  English 
and  Norse. 

It  is  necessary  to  examine  briefly  the  principal  argu- 
ments advanced  in  behalf  of  these  several  nations.  In 
this  way  we  shall  best  perceive  the  conditions  which 
caused  progress  or  checked  it,  and  so  trace  through  its 
many  channels  the  rise  which  we  are  following. 

(53) 


54  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

The  review  of  Greek  knowledge  of  the  magnet,  already 
made,  is,  perhaps,  in  itself  sufficient  to  show  how  slight 
must  be  the  basis  for  any  hypothesis  that  the  compass  is 
of  Hellenic  origin.  The  commerce  of  ancient  Greece  was 
of  limited  extent,  and  did  not  involve  long  voyages — her 
ships,  in  fact,  entering  the  Turrhene  seas  in  constant  fear 
of  the  Etruscans.  They  were  held  as  interlopers  on  the 
west  coast  of  Italy  even  up  to  533  B.  C.,1  the  carrying  trade 
meanwhile  being  mainly  confined  to  the  Carthaginian 
and  Etruscan  fleets.  Nevertheless  much  has  been  written 
in  support  of  the  theory  that  Homer  was  familiar  with 
the  compass  because,  in  the  Odyssey,  he  speaks  of  the 
Phocian  ships  which  sailed  utho'  clouds  and  darkness  veil 
the  encumbered  sky" — the  argument  being  that  ships 
could  not  possibly  ufly  fearless'1  through  darkness  and 
clouds,  unless  provided  with  a  binnacle  and  its  appurten- 
ances.2 Such  contentions  are  hardly  worthy  of  serious 
consideration.  The  application  of  similar  reasoning  to  the 
passage  in  the  same  poem  which  mentions 

"  Wondrous  ships,  self-moved,  instinct  with  mind, 
No  helm  secures  their  course,  no  pilot  guides, 
Like  man,  intelligent  they  plough  the  tides,"3 

might  with  equal  propriety  be  taken  to  show  the  famili- 
arity of  the  bard  with  steam,  and  possibly  electric,  propul- 
sion, or  even  with  the  still  unsolved  problem  of  automatic 
steering. 

The  long  voyages  of  the  sailors  of  Sidon  and  Arvad  have 
led  many  to  regard  the  compass  as  of  Phoenician  origin, 
under  the  assumption  that  such  journeys  could  not  have 
been  made  without  its  help.  The  writers  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  are  fond  of  asserting  that  the  Phoenician 

1  Gray :  History  of  Etruria,  I,  173. 

2W.  Cook  :  An  Inquiry  into  the  Patriarchal  and  Druidical  Religion. 
London,  1874.  Cook's  argument  is  upheld  by  Salverte:  Philosophy  of 
Magic  (trans,  by  Thomson),  N.  Y.,  1847,  vol.  II. 

8  Odyssey,  viii,  610. 


ANCIENT  VOYAGES  TO  OPHIR.  55 

ships  sent  out  by  King  Solomon  must  have  been  equipped 
with  it,  because  it  is  no  more  than  reasonable  to  assume 
that  Solomon's  wisdom  included  such  valuable  knowledge. 
On  the  other  hand,  remarks  the  old  chronicler,1  relaxing 
his  gravity  for  the  sake  of  the  pun,  u Solomon  had  all 
the  knowledge  necessary  to  Morall,  Politike  and'  saving 
wisdom,  and  to  the  end  for  which  God  gave  him  so  large 
a  heart.  But  the  sea  hath  bounds,  and  so  had  Solomon's 
wisdom.  Somewhat  was  left  for  John  Baptist  to  be 
greater  than  he,  or  any  borne  of  women.  Neither  was  the 
knowledge  of  the  compass  necessary  to  Solomon,  who, 
without  it,  could  and  did  compass  the  gold  of  Ophir." 

The  fact  that  Phoenician  vessels  went  to  this  Ophir  was 
also  deemed  another  good  reason  for  believing  the  needle 
to  have  been  on  them;  this,  mainly,  because  no  one  could 
say  definitely  where  Ophir  was,  and  hence  nothing  was 
easier  than  to  insist  that  its  situation  lay  at  the  very  ends 
of  the  earth,  whither  ships  could  not  possibly  find  their 
way  unaided.  Thus,  some  writers  place  Ophir  in  Peru, 
others  at  the  extremities  of  India,  from  which  last  place 
the  traveler  Bruce  removed  it.2  The  geographer  D'An- 
ville3  subsequently  found  a  suitable  situation  for  it  in  "the 
Kingdom  of  Sofaula,"  in  Africa. 

Finally,  however,  the  chroniclers  concluded  it  to  be  safer 
to  rest  upon  the  tradition  that  it  took  Solomon's  ships 
three  years  to  go  to  Ophir  (wherever  it  was)  and  return; 
hence,  on  the  chronological  argument  only,  they  insisted 
that  the  distance  must  have  been  vast.  But  Huet,4  Bishop 
of  Avranches,  disposed  of  this  inference  by  explaining  that 
the  first  year  was  used  for  the  outward  voyage  and  the 
second  for  the  return,  and  the  third  for  laying  up  and  re- 
pairing the  ships;  and  then  he  adds  with  much  wisdom, 

1  Purchas,  his  Pilgrims,     i,  \  8. 

2  Bruce  :  Travels  in  India.     Book  II.,  Chap.  IV. 

3  Venanson  :  De  1'Invention  de  la  Boussole  Nautiqtie,  Naples,  1808. 

4  Huet :  Des  Navigations  de  Solomon,  c.  8,  3. 


56  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

"It  is  great  error  to  judge  of  ancient  navigation  by  present. 
To-day  sailors  go  on  at  night  and  in  cloudy  weather,  while 
anciently  they  came  to  anchor.  The  ancients  followed 
every  angle  and  sinuosity  of  the  coast.  The  author  of  the 
Periplous  of  the  Red  Sea  proves  that  the  Egyptians  got  to 
India  only  by  following  the  coast  in  little  ships,"  and  he 
closes  with  Pliny's  even  more  sagacious  remark — "The 
desire  for  gain  rendered  India  less  distant  than  the  rest  of 
the  world."  The  appearance  of  Phoenician  ships  in  the 
Persian  Gulf  in  697-695  B.  C.  gave,  however,  great  im- 
petus to  commerce  with  the  far  East,  for  they  wrere  much 
larger,  better  built  and  more  sea- worthy  than  the  vessels 
of  the  Babylonians  and  Assyrians.  Voyages  in  the  Indian 
Ocean  in  search  of  new  markets  then  became  longer,  and 
finally  the  southern  shores  of  Shantung  (East  China)  were 
reached  in  about  675  B.  C.1 

There  is  no  trustworthy  evidence,  however,  that  the 
Phoenicians,  despite  their  skill  as  iron  workers,  had  any 
knowledge  of  the  directive  property  of  the  magnet.  Their 
most  ancient  book,  written  by  Sanconiathon,  u  the  phil- 
osopher of  Tyre,"  deals  with  the  progress  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  discoveries  made  by  man,  and,  in  accounting 
for  these  last,  says  that  "it  was  the  God  Otiranos  who 
devised  Betulae,  contriving  stones  that  moved  as  having 
life."  On  this  passage  the  theory  that  the  betulae  must 
have  been  the  lodestone  has  frequently  been  based,  and 
Sir  William  Betham  asserts  unequivocally,  though  none 
the  less  inconsequently,  that  this  statement  is  quite  suffi- 
cient to  prove  the  acquaintance  of  the  Phoenicians  with 
the  compass.2  On  the  other  hand,  it  has  been  elaborately 
demonstrated  by  one  author  that  the  betulae  were  not  ani- 
mated stones  at  all,  but  merely  stones  figuratively  so  con- 
sidered, or,  in  other  words,  idols;3  while  other  writers 

1  De  Lacotiperie  :  Western  Origin  of  Early  Chinese  Civilization,  Lcn- 
don,  1894. 

2  Sir  W.  Betham  :  Etruria-Celtica,  London,  1842,  II.,  8,  et  seq. 
8  Fourmont  :  Reflexions  sur  les  Anciens  Peuples,  Paris,  1747. 


THE  PLACING  OF  THE  GREAT  PYRAMID.  57 

have  argued  in  support  of  the  conclusion  that  the  stones 
were  probably  pieces  of  magnetic  iron  from  meteorites, 
worn  as  divining  talismans  by  the  priests  of  Cybele,  who 
supposed  them  to  contain  souls  which  had  fallen  from 
heaven.1 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  lack  of  evidence  tending 
to  show  that  the  Egyptians  of  the  Pharaonic  period  had 
knowledge  of  the  lodestone,  whence  it  necessarily  follows 
that  they  could  have  known  nothing  of  the  compass. 
Nevertheless,  upon  a  contrary  assumption,  it  has  been 
frequently  maintained  that  the  orientation  of  the  Great 
Pyramid  is  such  as  to  indicate,  with  reasonable  proba- 
bility, that  the  compass  needle  was  used  in  establishing 
the  positions  of  its  faces.2 

The  difficulty  with  this  supposition  is  that  the  Pyramid 
is,  in  fact,  placed  with  too  great  accuracy  for  the  work  to 
be  done  even  by  the  best  modern  compass.  Its  sides  face 
astronomically  the  north,  south,  east  and  west;  not  to  the 
cardinal  points  of  the  compass,  but  to  the  azimuthal  direc- 
tion of  the  earth's  axis  and  to  a  line  at  right  angles  thereto. 
The  compass,  however,  is  subject  to  variations,  due  to  reg- 
ular daily,  monthly,  yearly  and  centennial  changes  in  the 
earth's  magnetic  field,  which  controls  it.  Hence,  the 
task  of  figuring  backward  the  probable  position  of  the 
needle  at  the  time  of  the  building  of  the  Pyramid — a 
period  which  is  in  doubt — might  well  cause  despair  in 
the  most  skillful  investigator  of  terrestrial  magnetism; 
for,  in  the  least  interval  which  has  elapsed,  the  needle  has 
probably  swung  over  large  angles  from  the  true  north, 
back  and  forth  many  times.  But,  granting  such  a  possi- 
bility, still  it  may  be  safely  questioned  whether  the  most 
accomplished  surveyor  or  topographical  engineer  of  to-day 
could  run  the  lines  of  the  pyramid  faces,  by  the  aid  of  the 
best  modern  compass,  with  no  greater  error  than  19'  58", 

1  Ennemoser :  History  of  Magic,  II.,  27. 
2Gliddon  :  Otia  ^gyptiaca,  London,  1849. 


58  THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

which  the  French  Academy,  in  1799,  determined  to  be  the 
entire  amount  of  variation  of  these  faces  from  the  true 
astronomical  direction.1  Accidental  mechanical  imperfec- 
tions in  pivoting  the  needle,  or  in  the  shape  of  the  latter, 
might  easily  result  in  far  greater  error.  The  assumption 
that  an  instrument  free  from  fault  existed  in  such  remote 
antiquity  is,  of  course,  untenable.2 

The  spirit  of  maritime  enterprise  which  animated  the 
Phoenicians  and  Carthaginians,  and  even  the  Greeks,  was 
never  rife  among  the  Egyptians  of  early  eras,  and,  at  later 
epochs,  they  were  content  to  await  the  importation  of  goods 
by  the  foreign  merchants,  and  to  do  their  bartering  on 
their  own  territory.  They  had  no  timber  for  ship-building, 
and  dreaded  the  sea.  It  was  only  after  the  ports  were 
opened  and  commerce  was  forced  upon  her  that  Hgpyt 
became  a  maritime  state,  and  obtained  her  timber  from 
Syria,  and  then  Necho  (610  B.  C.)  built  his  navy,  part  in 
the  Mediterranean  and  part  in  the  Red  Sea,  and  expended 
120,000  lives  in  trying  to  cut  a  canal  which  would  enable 
him  to  unite  his  fleets.  This  failing,  he  sent  the  Red  Sea 
squadron  to  discover  a  route  around  the  African  continent, 
which  it  did,  rounding  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  and  enter- 
ing the  Mediterranean;  but,  as  the  ships  sailed  from  point 
to  point  along  the  coast,  they  expended  three  years  in 
making  the  trip,  and  so  the  king  decided  the  undertaking 
of  no  value.3  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  a  mari- 

1  C.  Piazzi  Smyth  :  Our  Inheritance   in   the  Great  Pyramid,  3rd  Ed., 
Loud.,  1877,  67. 

2  It  has  been  argued  that  the  Egyptian  bda-n-pe,  celestial  iron,  signifies 
magnetic  iron  :  and  that  the  expression  res-mehit-ba,  south-north  iron, 
in  the  inscription  of  the  pyramid  of  Unas   (last   Pharaoh   of  the  5th 
dynasty),  if  correctly  read,  would  indicate  an  Egyptian  knowledge  of 
polarity.     This,    however,    seems    to    be   unsupported   conjecture.     De 
Lacouperie  :  Chinese  Civilization,  cit  sup.     Deveria :  Le  Fer  et  I'Aitnant 
dans  1'ancienne  Egypte,  1870. 

8  Rawlinson  :  Ancient  Monarchies,  ii ;  History  of  Egypt.  Draper: 
Intell.  Dev.  of  Europe,  i.,  78  et  seq.  Kenrick:  Anc.  Egypt  under  the 
Pharaohs,  N.  Y.,  1853,  vol.  u,  36.  Plutarch:  Isis  and  Osiris,  363,  c.  32. 


THE  ETRUSCANS  59 

time  showing  such  as  this  affords  no  help  to  the  inference 
of  a  knowledge  of  the  mariner's  compass. 

Of  the  ancient  Mediterranean  nations,  there  still  re- 
mains to  be  considered  that  strange  people  which  came  by 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  from  Lydia,  and  with 
their  great  fleet  descended  upon  the  astonished  Umbrians, 
as  unexpectedly  as  if  they  had  fallen  from  the  sky.  The 
Rasenna,  as  they  called  themselves,  or  as  we  now  term 
them  the  "Etruscans,"  "were  not  like  any  other  nation," 
says  Dionysius,  "in  either  speech  or  manners,"  and  mod- 
ern ethnology  brings  them  into  the  great  Finno-Ugric 
family,  and  makes  them  relatives  of  the  Finns,  the  Tar- 
tars and  the  Mongolians. 

Here  was  a  nation  which,  if  it  did  not  undertake  the 
long  voyages  of  the  Phoenicians,  for  which  there  was  no 
need — since,  as  we  have  seen,  it  got  its  amber  by  a  much 
more  direct  road,  and  probably  acquired  its  other  foreign 
supplies  by  the  simple  and  convenient  process  of  piracy — 
fostered  the  sailor  and  all  his  arts  certainly  from  a  period 
thirteen  centuries  before  our  era.  The  Etruscans  invented 
the  anchor  and  the  cutwater  or  prow,  and  stamped  the  latter 
on  their  coins.  Likewise  they  placed  on  the  bows  of  their 
ships,  small  idols  pointing  the  way  in  advance,  and  we  re- 
tain them  still  in  the  modern  figure-head.1  Their  augurs 
consecrated  the  spot  on  which  a  temple  was  to  be  built  by 
marking  on  the  ground  and  in  the  air,  lines  at  right  angles 
indicating  regions  called  "cardines,"  and  hence  our  word 
"cardinal,"  and  our  denomination  "cardinal  points." 
These  regions  were  subdivided  so  that  the  ground  occupied 
by  the  building  had  sixteen  points,  each  giving  its  peculiar 
augury.2  They  laid  out  their  roads  in  straight  lines,  and 
built  great  sewers  and  tunnels  for  irrigation,  water-supply 
and  drainage  throughout  their  territory;  and  under  such 

'Dempster:  De  Etruria  Reg.,  Florence,  1723,  lib.  vii.,  c.  Ixxxi.  441; 
Suidas:  Lexicon,  verb.  Pattaeci.  Herod:  lib.  iii.,  37;  Gray:  History  of 
Etruria,  i.,  317,  411. 

2  Gray  :  History  of  Etruria,  cit.  sup. 


60  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

conditions,  especially  in  subterranean  works,  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  perceive  how  the  alignments  could  have  been 
made  without  the  aid  of  the  magnetic  needle. 

But  there  is  nothing  tangible  to  suggest  Etruscan  knowl- 
edge of  the  compass,  except  a  single  object  found  in  the 
tombs,  which  bears  an  incoherent  inscription  concerning 
" steering  on  the  ocean  by  night  and  day,"  a  bas-relief  of 
a  man  holding  a  rudder,  and  an  eight-pointed  star,  very 
like  the  similar  star  which  has  been  on  the  compass  card 
ever  since  the  latter  appeared  in  Europe,  and  commonly 
known  as  the  urose  of  the  winds."  It  also  exhibits,  at 
the  end  of  the  ray  corresponding  to  the  north,  a  figure 
closely  resembling  the  ufleur  de  lis"  or  "lyilly,"  which 
also  appeared  upon  the  very  earliest  compasses.  The 
terminals  of  the  rays  corresponding  to  N.  E.,  S.  E.,  N.  W., 
and  S.  W.,  are  similar  and  rounded,  and  thus  differ  from 
the  sharp  apexes  corresponding  to  the  cardinal  points. 

It  was  originally  argued  that  the  object  was  in  fact  a 
compass  dial  above  which  the  needle  was  suspended  by  a 
fine  thread  or  wire,1  but  with  the  refutation2  of  this  theory 
by  the  Italian  antiquaries  who  showed  it  to  be  a  lamp, 
archaeological  interest  in  it  ceased.  Nevertheless  the  con- 
jecture is  still  possible  that  the  dial  which  first  appeared 
in  Italian  compasses  may  have  been  copied  by  the  medi- 
aeval navigators  from  some  such  Etruscan  design. 

With  this  brief  survey,  we  may  lay  aside  as  unproved 
by  the  evidence  outlined,  the  various  hypotheses  which  at- 
tribute the  invention  of  the  compass  to  one  or  the  other  of 
the  ancient  nations  bordering  upon  the  Mediterranean. 
With  regard  to  the  Phoenicians  and  Greeks,  there  is  no  ap- 
parent ground  even  for  reasonable  conjecture  that  they  had 
any  knowledge  of  the  magnet  beyond  its  attractive  power; 
while  as  to  the  Egyptians  it  is  extremely  doubtful  that 
they  knew  anything  of  the  lodestone  at  all. 

1  Sir  W.  Betham  :  Etruria-Celtica,  cit.  sup. 

'Dennis  :  The  Cities  and  Cemeteries  of  Etruria,  London,  1878.  II., 
105. 


THE   NOMAD   RACES.  6 1 

Whether  the  Etruscans,  however,  were  completely 
ignorant  of  magnetic  polarity  is  open  to  question — not 
merely  because  of  the  considerations  relating  to  them  and 
already  noted,  but  for  another  and  broader  reason;  their 
race  connection  with  the  Mongolians.  Consideration  of 
this  is  a  natural  prelude  to  the  discussion  of  the  alleged 
Chinese  invention  of  the  compass — and  hence  to  that 
of  the  part  which  Asiatics  have  taken  in  the  intellectual 
rise  under  review. 

Among  the  races  of  mankind  which  are  included  in 
neither  the  Aryan  nor  the  Semitic  nations,  there  is  a 
group  termed  the  Turanian,  which  comprises  all  those 
which  can  be  philologically  proved  to  have  a  genetic  con- 
nection, and  which  therefore  constitute  a  true  linguistic 
family.  The  most  important  branch  of  the  Turanians  is 
made  up  of  original  inhabitants  of  the  great  Asiatic  table- 
land, and  in  these  are  included  the  Finnic,  Samojedic, 
Turkic  or  Tartaric,  Mongolic  and  Tungusic  tribes,  or  as 
they  are  sometimes  collectively  termed,  the  Ugric  or  Altaic 
nations. 

These  people  have  certain  well-marked  peculiarities, 
which  distinguish  them  from  all  other  races.  While  the 
Aryan  and  Semite  nations  are  found  inhabiting  large  areas 
of  continuous  territory  never  separated  by  any  great  inter- 
val from  others  of  their  own  race,  and  moving  by  land  by 
a  system  of  lateral  extension,  so  that  they  colonize  by  in- 
dividuals and  families,  rather  than  by  tribes  or  by  the 
migration  of  an  entire  community,  the  Ugrics,  on  the 
other  hand,  present  characteristics  of  an  opposite  descrip- 
tion. They  are  found,  so  to  speak,  in  isolated  patches. 
There  are  Finns  in  Sweden,  in  Hungary,  in  Russia,  in 
Persia  and  in  Siberia;  Mongols  on  the  Don  and  Mongols 
two  thousand  miles  distant  on  the  slopes  of  the  Altai,  and 
congeners  on  the  shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean  and  on  the 
Bosphorus.  These  people  migrated  in  bodies  with  their 
herds  and  their  flocks.  They  came  upon  desired  territory 
and  took  it  by  conquest;  they  multiplied  rapidly,  and  when 


62  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

their  land  became  inadequate  to  the  support  of  its  popula- 
tion, the  excess  again  migrated  and  the  process  was  re- 
peated. In  this  way  the  Mongolic  hordes  originally  con- 
quered China  and  penetrated  to  Moscow  and  Poland.  In 
this  way,  the  dynasty  of  the  Great  Mogul  was  founded  in 
India,  and  that  of  the  Manchoos  established  itself  in  mod- 
ern China,  where  it  still  exists,  as  the  long  queues  of  the 
Celestials  bear  witness.1 

The  genesis  of  the  Etruscans  has  always  been  a  disputed 
point  among  ethnologists,  who  have  assigned  them  to  the 
Greeks,  to  the  Egyptians,  to  the  Phoenicians,  to  the 
Canaanites,  to  the  Libyans,  to  the  Armenians,  to  the  Can- 
tabrians  or  Basques,  to  the  Goths,  to  the  Celts,  and  to 
the  Hyksos.  There  are  persuasive  arguments,  however, 
which  connect  them  with  the  great  Ugric  family.  Their 
language  has  been  shown  to  be  very  similar  to  that  of  the 
Finns  and  the  Tartars,  and  their  pictures  exhibit  them 
with  high  cheek-bones  and  oblique  eyes,  such  as  the 
Aryans  and  Semites  never  have  ;  and  again,  unlike  these 
last,  they  were  unemotional  and  stubborn  and  conserva- 
tive. They  reverenced  ancestors,  and  built  tombs  and 
cared  for  the  needs  of  the  dead  as  if  they  were  living,  all 
of  which  is  foreign  to  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the 
Aryan  or  the  Semite,  who  bade  farewell  to  his  dead  at  the 
brink  of  the  grave  and  proclaimed  his  own  vitality  in  his 
palaces  and  temples. 

They  came  either  directly  or  after  a  sojourn  in  Egypt 
from  Lydia  in  Asia  Minor,  where  the  magnetite  is  abund- 
ant ;  still  earlier  from  that  cradle  of  the  human  race,  the 
Asiatic  highlands,  whence  still  earlier  again,  others  of 
their  kin  wandered  off,  even  before  the  old  ice  was  gone, 
into  the  caves  of  Aquitaine  and  to  the  Swiss  lakes,  where 
their  bones  are  still  found  mingled  with  those  of  the  rein- 
deer and  the  cave-bear,  and  with  their  stone  axes  and  bone 
needles ;  while  their  characteristic  tombs  and  mounds  ex- 
tend over  Europe  and  Asia. 

1  Taylor  :  Etruscan  Researches.     London,  1874. 


THE  CHINESE   AND  THE   BABYLONIANS.  63 

Whether  this  great  Ugric  family,  before  its  dispersion, 
became  familiar  with  iron  and  the  lodestone,  we  can  only 
surmise. 

Nor  is  the  hypothesis  incredible.  The  deserts  and 
steppes  of  western  and  northern  Asia,  over  which  these 
races  wandered,  were  as  trackless  as  the  deep,  and  perhaps 
that  same  necessity  which  is  "the  mother  of  invention" 
may  as  well  have  operated  to  suggest  the  lodestone  as  a 
means  of  guidance  to  the  nomad  of  prehistoric  times  as 
to  the  venturesome  sailor  of  the  Middle  Ages.  We  should 
thus  naturally  seek  traces  of  such  ancient  knowledge 
among  the  Etruscans,  Mongols  and  Finns,  rather  than 
among  the  people  of  the  Aryan  and  the  Semite  families; 
in  fact,  among  these  we  have  failed  to  find  it.  The 
Etruscan  tombs  have  yielded  suggestive  but  slender  evi- 
dence. When  we  turn,  however,  to  the  Mongols,  the  pre- 
sumptive proofs  multiply. 

Modern  research  establishes  a  connection  between  the 
prehistoric  Akkadians  and  the  Chinese.  The  language 
and  the  legends,  the  written  character,  the  astronomy, 
the  arts,  agriculture  and  domestic  economy  of  China,  all 
show  traces  of  a  prehistoric  community  of  origin  with  those 
of  the  first  inhabitants  of  Babylonia.  M.  De  Lacouperie,  & 
who  regards  the  Bak  tribes,  which  migrated  eastward  from  £ 
the  last  named  region  during  the  twenty-third  century 
B.  C.,  as  the  first  civilizers  of  China,  especially  suggests 
that  the  early  Chinese  names  of  the  four  cardinal  points 
much  reseirible  those  given  to  the  same  points  by  the 
Chaldeans.  The  same  authority  collates  an  extraordinary 
number  of  instances  in  which  the  results  of  Chaldean 
culture  are  found  embodied  in  earlier  Chinese  civilization, 
showing,  for  example,  that  from  the  Chaldeans  the  Chi- 
nese obtained  knowledge  of  the  solar  year,  of  their  met- 
rical system,  of  divination,  of  their  musical  scales,  of  the 
gnomon  and  the  clepsydra,  of  decimal  notation  and  local 
value  of  figures,  of  the  transit  instrument,  of  the  fire  drill, 
of  brick-making,  canal  digging,  river  embankments  and 


64  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

irrigation  works,  of  the  use  of  metals  and  the  art  of 
casting  them,  of  skin  boats,  of  war  chariots,  and  of  so 
many  other  items  as  to  afford  ground  for  his  belief  that 
everything  in  Chinese  antiquity  and  traditions  points  to 
a  western  origin.1 

I  have  now  to  consider  the  knowledge  of  the  ancient 
Chinese  concerning  the  magnet  and  the  amber,  and  their 
oft-reputed  invention  of  the  mariner's  compass. 


Lying  to  the  south  of  the  steep  declivities  of  Gobi,  on 
the  Asiatic  continent,  there  is  a  fertile  lowland  where  a 
profuse  semi-tropical  vegetation  exists,  in  abrupt  contrast 
with  the  sparse  and  rugged  growth  of  the  desolate  northern 
steppes.  Here  the  warm  and  dry  weather  of  the  spring 
months,  followed  by  the  abundant  monsoon  rains  of  early 
summer,  cause  the  bamboo  and  the  wheat  to  flourish  with 
equal  luxuriance,  so  that  the  products  of  the  soil  combine 
the  hardy  character  of  those  of  the  temperate  zone  with 
the  rapid  advance  to  maturity  of  the  tropical  yield.  This 
territory  was  the  nucleus  of  the  Chinese  Empire.  Its  situ- 
ation being  entirely  inland,  its  inhabitants,  under  the 
favorable  conditions  of  soil  and  climate,  became  of  neces- 
sity, and  above  all,  an  agricultural  people. 

From  the  adjacent  dwellers  in  Thibet,  India  and  Central 
Asia,  the  Chinese  were  separated  by  a  difference  in  lan- 
guage, by  natural  barriers,  and,  artificially,  by  the  great 
wall  which  they  built  along  the  edge  of  the  northern 
cliffs.  It  was  not  until  a  comparatively  late  period  in  their 
history  that  their  boundary  advanced,  by  conquest,  to  the 
sea- coast. 

Endowed,  therefore,  originally  with  a  territory  situated 
geographically  to  advantage,  with  a  soil  capable  of  provid- 
ing for  all  their  needs,  surrounded  by  neighbors  of  the 
same  descent  as  themselves,  whom  they  surpassed  in  civil- 

:  Primitive  Civilizations.     N.  Y.,  1894,  16  et  seq. 


CHINESE   CHRONOLOGY  65 

ization  for  thousands  of  years,  comparatively  unmolested 
by  invasion,  and,  even  when  overcome  by  the  Tartar 
hordes,  absorbing  their  conquerors,  and  thus  converting 
subjugation  into  a  mere  change  of  governing  dynasty, 
there  prevailed,  among  the  Chinese,  conditions  which  in- 
fallibly tended  to  the  promotion  of  peaceful  self-evolution 
and  also  the  development  of  an  intellectual  and  material 
independence  of  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  an  independence 
which  finally  hardened  into  national  conservatism  of  an 
intolerant  type. 

In  seeking  to  discover  the  chronological  periods  when 
events  even  of  great  national  moment  occurred  in  the 
history  of  such  a  people,  the  difficulties  encountered  are 
by  no  means  trifling.  When  it  comes  to  fixing,  with  any 
degree  of  certainty,  the  time  of  happenings  of  a  specific  or 
less  important  character,  they  are  practically  insurmount- 
able. No  epoch  can  be  assigned  as  certainly  that  of 
the  beginning  of  Chinese  history.  The  national  annals,  in 
one  form  or  other,  are  claimed  to  extend  back  through  the 
Kingin-Chan  era  to  the  reign  of  Yao,  2357  B.  C.  Tradition 
still  more  vague  reaches  to  the  ascent  of  the  throne  by 
Hoang-ti  in  2704  B.  C.  But  there  are  Chinese  authors 
who  gravely  assert  periods  of  national  existence  as  elaps- 
ing prior  to  the  death  of  Confucius  (479  B.  C.),  ranging 
from  276,000  to  96,961,740  years.1 

In  China  there  are  no  great  structures,  such  as  the 
Egyptian  pyramids,  which  can  serve  as  proof  of  the  civil- 
ization and  attainments  which  existed  at  any  period  prior 
to  that  of  the  building  of  the  great  wall.  The  enlight- 
ened ruler  of  the  Tsin  dynasty2  who  constructed  not  only 
that  wonderful  work  (B.  C.  204),  but  provided  the  country 
with  those  potent  civilizing  agents,  good  roads,  conceived 
that  the  services  he  had  rendered  were  amply  sufficient  to 

1  Azuni  :   Dissertation   stir  la  Boussole.      Paris,    1809.      Quoting  De- 
Guignes:  Discours.  prelim,  au  Shoo-king. 

2  Williams:  The  Middle  Kingdom,  New  York,  1883,  ii.  92. 

5 


66  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

justify  his  assumption  of  the  title  of  "  Emperor  First,"  and 
the  consignment  to  oblivion  of  all  annals  which  could  pre- 
serve traditions  of  any  earlier  reigns.  Therefore  he  con- 
structed, metaphorically  speaking,  another  wall  which  has 
been  even  a  more  effectual  barrier  to  historical  research 
than  was  the  great  pile  of  masonry  to  the  incursions  of  the 
northern  barbarians — that  is  to  say,  he  burned  every  book 
he  could  find  excepting  those  treating  on  agriculture  and 
medicine;  and  lest  their  contents  should  be  remembered 
or  reproachful  comment  should  be  made  upon  his  act,  he 
buried  alive  five  hundred  of  the  most  learned  scholars. 
The  intention  was  to  completely  blot  out  every  trace  of 
preceding  emperors.  Some  thirty  years  later,  when 
Wan-te,  of  the  Han  dynasty  (B.  C.  178),  wished  to  revive 
literature,  even  so  venerated  a  classic  as  the  Shoo-king 
could  not  be  found;  so  that  it  was  re-constructed  from 
memory  by  one  Fuh-sang,  then  ninety  years  of  age,  who 
in  the  reign  of  the  Emperor  First,  being  one  of  the  princi- 
pal literati,  had  put  out  his  own  eyes  and  feigned  idiocy  in 
order  to  escape  death.  A  few  years  later  it  was  claimed 
that  a  number  of  books  had  been  found  in  pulling  down  a 
former  abode  of  Confucius,  and  on  this  alleged  discovery 
some  of  the  existing  Chinese  classics  are  based.1  At  the 
present  time,  if  the  latter  were  destroyed,  scores  of  Chinese 
scholars  could  undoubtedly  be  found  capable  of  reproduc- 
ing them  verbatim  from  memory;  but  the  fact  that  the 
version  of  the  Shoo-king  repeated  by  Fuh-sang  was  con- 
sidered far  inferior  to  that  of  the  supposed  old  book,  dis- 
covered as  before  mentioned,  seems  to  indicate  that  the 
extraordinary  education,  which  the  Middle  Kingdom  now 
requires  of  its  people  as  a  condition  precedent  to  social 
and  official  honors,  did  not,  in  those  ancient  days,  reach  its 
present  degree  of  minute  thoroughness. 

While  the  beginning  of  Chinese  history  is  placed  by  De 
Lacouperie  at  the  23d  century  B.  C.,  other  Chinese  annal- 

•The    Shoo-king,    or  the   Historical    Classic.     Trans,    by   Medhurst. 
Shanghae,  1846. 


THE  CHINESE  SOUTH-POINTING  CARTS.  67 

ists  regard  it  as  impossible  to  rely  upon  any  records  dating 
back  more  than  800  years  before  our  era.1  Legge*  fixes 
the  beginning  of  trustworthy  chronology  at  826  B.  C.,  and 
Plath,  at  841  B.  C.  It  is  apparent,  therefore,  that  in  deal- 
ing with  the  legends  and  traditions  which  form  the  basis 
for  the  assertion  of  knowledge  of  the  magnet  by  the  Chi- 
nese at  very  ancient  epochs,  the  doubt  whether  they  prop- 
erly belong  to  mythology  or  to  history  is  unavoidable. 

The  most  ancient  of  these  legends  relates  to  the  victory 
of  the  Emperor  Hiuan  yuan,  or  Hoang-ti,  over  the  rebel 
Tchi  yeou,  or  Khiang,  an  event  supposed  to  have  taken 
place  in  the  year  2634  before  our  era.  Khiang,  having 
been  defeated,  "  excited  a  great  fog  in  order  to  put,  by  the 
obscurity,  disorder  in  the  ranks  of  his  adversary.  But 
Hiuan  yuan  made  a  chariot  which  indicated  the  south,  in 
order  to  recognize  the  four  cardinal  points,"  and  by  the 
aid  of  this  he  overtook  and  destroyed  Khiang.3 

This  legend  is  so  clearly  mythical  that  it  would  deserve 
no  attention,  were  it  not  constantly  quoted  by  pro-Chinese 
advocates  in  support  of  their  favorite  claim  that  the  inven- 
tion of  the  compass  by  the  Chinese  extends  back  to  the 
remotest  antiquity.4  In  the  form  in  which  they  present  the 
story,  it  perhaps  warrants  Klaproth's  conclusion  that  there 
is  nothing  so  plainly  fabulous  about  it  as  to  render  it 
certain  that  it  has  no  historic  foundation;  but  the  anti- 
Chinese  writers  have  unearthed  various  ancient  works  in 
which  the  tradition  is  very  differently  stated.  In  one  of 
these  Khiang  is  destroyed  by  a  monster-winged  dragon, 
sent  after  him  by  Hoang-ti,  which  threw  him  into  a  valley 

1  Azuni,  cit.  sup. 

2  Chinese  Classics. 

"Thoung  Kian  Kang  Mou,  imperial  edition  of  1707,  fol.  22.  Quoted 
by  Klaproth:  1'Invention  de  la  Boussole.  Paris,  1834,  72. 

Also,  Kou  tin  tchou,  quoted  by  Biot.  Comptes  Rendus,  vol.  xix.,  823. 

*Arriot:  Abrege"  Chron  de  1'Hist.  Univ.  de  1'Empire  Chin.,  vol.  13. 
Memoirs  concerning  the  Chinese,  p.  234,  No.  3.  Martini  :  Historia  Sinica, 
106. 


68  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

full  of  devils;  while,  in  another,  Hoang-ti  gains  his  victory 
by  the  aid  of  arms  obtained  from  a  celestial  virgin,  and 
only  by  that  means  overthrows  Khiang,  who  "had  the 
wings  and  body  of  a  beast.  n  l 

The  tribes  which  began  the  settlement  of  China  are 
believed  to  have  maintained  a  jade  traffic  with  western 
Asia,  the  trade  route  of  which  was  also  a  channel  for  the 
trans-continental  flow  of  intelligence.  This  commerce, 
which  had  gradually  decreased,  appears  to  have  revived 
after  the  conquest  of  the  country  in  uoo  B.  C.,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  new  dynasty  therein  by  the  Tchoii,  an 
energetic  and  powerful  race  of  Kirghiz.  origin,  which  had 
occupied  for  centuries  the  territory  bounding  China  on 
the  northwest.  Not  only  did  new  learning  arrive  through 
the  increased  traffic,  but  the  Tchoii  themselves  had  prob- 
ably already  acquired  much  astronomical  and  astrological 
lore  from  Khorasmia,  where  a  focus  of  such  knowledge 
had  been  established  by  a  branch  of  the  Aryan  race  in 
about  1304  B.  C.2 

An  interval  of  fifteen  centuries  separates  the  legend  of 
Hoang-ti  from  the  one  next  in  chronological  order,  wherein 
a  supposed  reference  to  the  magnet  is  contained,  and  which 
according  to  one  Chinese  authority  ascribes  knowledge  of 
polarity  to  Tchoii-Kung,  the  founder  of  the  Tchoii  dy- 
nasty, who  is  supposed  to  have  obtained  it  from  the  sources 
above  mentioned.3  A  later  and  more  complete  version  is 
found  in  an  historical  memoir4  written  in  the  first  half  of 
the  second  century  of  our  era,  a  production  which  is,  in 
fact,  an  attempt  to  collect  such  fragments  of  ancient  annals 
as  were  believed  to  have  survived  the  wholesale  burning  of 
a  thousand  years  before.  It  does  not  appear  that  this  work 


,  cit.  snp.,  102.  2  De  Lacouperie,  cit.  sup. 

3  De  Lacouperie,  cit.  sup.,  noting  an  amplified  version  of  the  lost  5  6th 
chapter  of  Shoo  King,  written  by  Kwei  Kuh  tze  in  4th  century  B.  C. 

*  The  Szu  Ki  or  Historic  Memoirs  of  Szu  ma  thsian  quoted  in  Thoung 
Kian  Rang  Mou,  Ed.  of  1701,  vol.  I,  fol.  9.  Reproduced  by  Klaproth, 
cit.  sup.,  79. 


THE  LEGEND  OF  THE  AMBASSADORS.  69 

now  exists,  except  in  the  form  of  extracts  quoted  in  a  book 
issued  during  the  last  century,  so  that  the  story  may  well 
be  regarded  as  not  only  an  exceedingly  doubtful  tradition, 
but  one  which  has  certainly  undergone  two  modern  atten- 
uations. Its  period  is  mo  B.  C.,  when  the  Cochin-Chinese 
are  alleged  to  have  sent  ambassadors  to  offer  white  pheas- 
ants to  the  Emperor,  and  to  do  him  homage,  because  there 
had  been  no  particularly  annoying  convulsions  of  nature 
for  the  preceding  three  years.  Three  envoys  were  dis- 
patched over  different  routes,  because  the  uroad  was  very 
long  and  the  mountains  high  and  the  rivers  deep,"  and  if 
a  single  individual  should  go  astray,  the  others  might  suc- 
ceed in  reaching  their  destination.  As  it  happened,  all 
arrived  safely  and  made  their  offerings,  but  when  the  time 
came  to  return  they  concluded  that  they  had  forgotten 
the  way  back.  The  Emperor  then  presented  them  with 
five  carts,  or  chariots,  which  always  indicated  the  south, 
whereupon  they  set  forth,  but  instead  of  steering  a  straight 
course  back  to  Cochin-China  they  seem,  somewhat  incon- 
sequently,  to  have  made  their  way  to  the  seashore,  and  to 
have  followed  the  coast  to  their  native  land;  and  what  re- 
flects still  more  upon  the  efficacy  of  the  carts  is  that  it 
took  them  a  whole  year  to  make  the  journey. 

"The  Mirror  of  Chinese  History,"  a  native  commentary 
illustrative  of  the  facts  related  in  the  Shoo-king,  tells  the 
story  with  some  variations,  the  final  statement  being  that 
"the  duke  gave  them  five  close  carriages,  each  of  which 
was  so  constructed  as  to  point  to  the  south ;  the  ambassa- 
dors mounted  these,  and,  passing  through  Foo-nan  and 
Lin-yih  to  the  seashore  in  about  a  year,  they  arrived  at 
their  country.  Hence  the  south-pointing  carriages  have 
always  been  used  to  direct  the  way  and  to  show  the  sub- 
mission of  distant  strangers,  in  order  to  regulate  the  four 
quarters  of  the  world." 

Another  work1  gives  a  sequel  to  this  story  to  the  effect 

*Ki  kin  chu,  written  by  Tsui-p'au  during  the  Tsin  dynasty.    Jour.  N. 
C.  Branch,  Roy.  As.  Soc.,  n.  s.,  xi.,  123. 


70  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

that  u  the  officers  who  accompanied  the  ambassadors  to 
their  country  then  returned.  They  came  back  in  the  same 
carnages  in  a  direction  opposite  to  that  which  they 
pointed,  and  occupied  a  year  as  the  journey  out  had  done. 
The  axles  and  protruding  axle-ends  were  originally  of 
iron,  which  was  completely  rusted  away  when  they  re- 
turned. The  chariots  were  entrusted  to  officers  to  be  kept 
for  use  of  the  envoys  of  subject  states  located  at  a  dis- 
tance." This  was  written  centuries  after  the  events  de- 
scribed, and  is  probably  wholly  imaginary. 

But  in  the  Shoo-king  itself,  in  the  account  given  of  the 
funeral  of  the  King  of  Chow,  which  occurred  at  about  the 
same  time  (1102  B.  C.),  there  is  described  the  placing  of 
the  royal  vehicles  about  the  palace — and  "the  great  or 
pearly  carriage  is  to  be  on  the  visitors'  or  western  stairs 
facing  the  south:  the  succeeding  or  golden  carriage  on  the 
eastern  stairs  facing  the  south" — and  so  on  for  the  cate- 
gory of  chariots,  each  successive  one  being  made  of  less 
valuable  material,  and  the  last  being  of  wood.  It  will  be 
noted  here,  that  the  chariots  were  merely  placed  or  in- 
stalled so  as  to  face  the  south,  and  the  south  in  China  has 
always  been  regarded  as  the  honorable  quarter.  The  em- 
peror takes  his  position  facing  that  point,  and  all  import- 
ant buildings  are  similarly  placed.  Whether  the  south- 
pointing  chariots  of  the  legend  (as  the  commentaries  and 
alleged  translations,  made  many  centuries  later,  assert) 
actually  indicated  the  south  by  some  contrivance  contained 
in  them,  though  not  described;  or  whether  they  were 
merely  chariots  of  honor,  which,  like  those  of  the  King  of 
Chow,  were  placed  ceremonially  facing  the  south,  is  thus 
a  debateable  question.  It  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the 
commentary  on  the  Shoo-king,  written  in  1200  A.  D., 
is  elaborate  on  astronomical,  musical  and  geographical 
topics,  even  to  the  details  of  the  armillary  sphere  and  the 
minute  proportioning  of  cords  for  producing  musical 
tones.  It  is,  therefore,  exceedingly  significant  that  both 
text  and  commentary — the  latter  written  long  before  the 


A   LOST  ART.  7! 

invention  of  the  compass  became  a  matter  of  international 
dispute — should  be  completely  silent  on  the  subject  of  the 
magnet,  if  it  were  in  common  use. 

The  fact  that  the  tradition  of  the  ambassadors  persisted 
in  itself,  does  not  render  it  any  the  less  mythical.  Besides, 
like  the  older  legend,  it  is  encountered  in  bad  company. 
Azuni1  quotes  from  the  Chinese  work,  in  which  he  finds 
it,  an  equally  grave  narration  concerning  men  "with 
bodies  of  beasts  and  heads  of  bronze,  who  ate  sand  and  in- 
vented arrows  and  frightened  the  world."  And  the 
"Mirror  of  Chinese  History,"  whence  I  have  transcribed 
the  verbatim  recital  here  given,  likewise  solemnly  records 
the  appearance  of  a  yellow  dragon  and  of  a  flame  which 
presently  "changed  into  a  red  bird  having  a  soothing 
voice." 

The  most  ancient  historical  record  of  chariots  indicating 
the  south  is  that  found  in  the  work  of  Han-fei-tsu,  a  Tao 
philosopher  who  lived  in  the  fourth  century  B.  C.  His 
work  is  non-existent,  but,  as  usual,  is  quoted  in  a  com- 
paratively modern  Cyclopaedia,  lu-hai,  as  follows: 

"The  ancient  sovereigns  established  indicators  of  the 
south  (See-nan)  to  distinguish  the  morning  side  from  the 
evening  side."2 

A  later  writer  Liu-hiang  (80-89  B-  C.)  ascribes  the  char- 
iots to  an  'earlier  date,  asserting  that  the  Duke  Hien  of 
Tsin,  who  lived  between  822  and  8n  B.  C.,  attempted  to 
construct  them  and  failed,  and  that  the  Duke  Huan  of  Tsi, 
a  century  and  a  half  later,  succeeded.3  If  the  art  was  lost 
and  recovered  at  this  early  epoch,  it  is  a  curious  fact  that 

1  Dissertation  sur  la  Boussole,  cit.  sup.  I^egge  (Chinese  Classics, 
Shoo-king,  Vol.  III.,  535-7)  rejects  both  the  Hoang-ti  and  the  ambassa- 
dors' legends. 

2Biot:  Comptes  Rendus,  cit.  sup.  Klaproth,  contra,  says  that  the 
earliest  work  containing  a  like  reference  dates  only  from  the  fourth 
century  A.  D.,  and  that  merely  fragments  of  it  have  come  down. 

3  De  Lacouperie,  cit.  sup. 


72  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

history  should  have  repeated  itself  in  the  same  particular, 
thirteen  hundred  years  later;1  for  during  the  fifth  century, 
and,  although  some  chariots  still  existed,  a  skilful  work- 
man, after  a  year's  study,  was  unable  to  reproduce  one,  and 
thereupon  poisoned  himself  "with  the  feathers  of  the  bird 
ming,  macerated  in  wine."  The  task  was  finally  accom- 
plished by  one  Ma-yo,  whose  method  "was  found  perfect." 

The  commentary  on  the  Hoang-ti  tradition  says  that 
nothing  was  known  as  to  the  ancient  form  of  these  chariots, 
but  that  they  were  devised  by  the  Emperor  Hian-tsoung, 
who  reigned  from  806  to  820  A.  D.  We  are  told  that  they 
had  four  gilded  dragons  on  the  corners  which  held  up  a 
feather  canopy,  and  that  a  wooden  figure  on  the  top 
pointed  southwards;  but  nothing  is  vouchsafed  about  the 
magnet.  And  that  is  the  case2  with  every  one  of  the 
Chinese  descriptions  of  these  south-pointing  chariots  an- 
tedating the  introduction  of  the  compass  in  Europe.  It 
is  true  that  Klaproth,  Duhalde,  Biot  and  other  sinologists 
conceive  that  the  a  posteriori  inference  that  a  south- 
pointing  chariot  is  one  containing  a  magnet  needle  may 
fairly  be  made;  but  this  cannot  overcome  the  force  of  the 
omission  above  noted,  especially  in  view  of  the  further 
fact  that  no  direct  statement  of  Chinese  knowledge  of  the 
magnet  exists  of  a  date  earlier  than  121  A.  D.,3  a  period 
when  the  Europeans  had  been  conversant  with  the  lode- 
stone  and  its  attractive  properties  for  six  hundred  years, 
and  probably  longer.  And  this  statement  consists  of  but 
six  Chinese  characters  in  the  dictionary  Choue-Wen, 
where  the  character  "Tseu"  is  defined  as  "the  name 
of  a  stone  with  which  the  needle  is  directed."  Even  this 
is  known  only  by  citations  in  later  works. 

The  mediaeval  and  modern  Chinese  encyclopaedists  de- 

1  Klaproth,  cit.  sup.,  89.     Biot  notes  the  annals  of  Wei  (235  A.  D.);  the 
official  history  of  the  Tsin  dynasty  (265  to  419  A.  D.);  of  Chi  hou  (335  to 
349  A.  D.),  and  of  the  Soung  dynasty  (420  to  477  A.  D). 

2  China  Review:  1891,  Vol.  XIX,  52. 

8 Biot:  cit.  sup.,  p.  824;  Klaproth:  cit.  sup.,  p.  66. 


E  CHINESE  SOUTH-POINTING  CARTS. 


73 


pict  the  south-pointing  cart  or  chariot  as  represented  in 
the  accompanying  illustration,  which  appears  in  the  so- 
called  great  Japanese  encyclo- 
paedia of  1712,  and  originally  in  a 
Chinese  work  of  similar  character 
of  1341.  The  figure,  some  six- 
teen inches  in  height,  was  made 
of  jade.  Within  the  right  arm, 
extended  in  front,  was  concealed 
a  magnet,  the  directive  force  of 
which  is  supposed  to  have  turned 
the  manikin  on  its  pivot,  and 
thus  to  have  caused  it  always  to 
point  to  the  south.  This  arrange- 
ment, however,  the  Chinese  con- 
cede to  have  been  unknown  before 
the  5th  century  A.  D.,  when  they 
assert  that  it  replaced  a  magnet 
hanging  within  the  chariot.1 

Iron  was  extensively  worked  in  Shensi  in  B.  C.  220,  for 
at  that  time  there  was  a  heavy  excise  duty  on  it,  and 
there  is  a  tradition  that  such  imposts  were  laid  as  far  back 
as  685  B.  C.  Hence,  as  magnetite  is  known  to  exist  in 
the  iron  deposits  of  the  above  locality,  it  has  been  argued 
that  sufficient  evidence  is  thereby  afforded  of  Chinese 
knowledge  of  the  properties  of  the  lodestone  at  the  earliest 
named  date.  But  the  same  argument  would  bring  home 
a  like  acquaintance  to  the  Syrians,  for  example,  and  there- 
fore it  is  of  no  value  in  a  determination  of  priority  in  in- 
vention between  the  different  iron-working  nations. 

So  far,  nothing  has  been  adduced  showing  any  cogniz- 
ance by  the  ancient  Chinese,  of  the  attractive  quality  of 
the  lodestone,  nor  any  knowledge  at  all  of  the  amber. 


CHINESE  SOUTH-POINTING 
CART. 


Ku  yu  tu  (Illustrations  of  Ancient  Jades),  first  published  in  1341, 
copied  into  a  Chinese  encyclopaedia  of  1609,  and  then  into  the  Japanese 
encyclopaedia.  Klaproth:  cit.  sup.  De  Lacouperie:  cit.  sup.  Obviously 
the  dimensions  of  cart  and  figure,  in  the  picture,  are  out  of  proportion. 


74  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Klaproth  states  that  abundant  deposits  of  the  resin  exist 
in  the  empire,  but  also  records  that  it  was  imported,  in 
various  manufactured  forms,  as  presents  to  the  emperor 
from  Rome  and  western  countries,  during  the  first  and 
second  centuries  B.  C.  De  Lacouperie  says  that  the 
knowledge  of  amber  came  to  the  Chinese  from  the  west — 
Kabulistan — and  points  out  the  similarity  between  the 
Chinese  and  Persian  names  for  it.  The  earliest  reference 
to  its  attractive  property  is  also  apparently  the  first  men- 
tion of  the  like  property  of  the  magnet,  and  appears  in  a 
44 Eulogy  of  the  magnet,"  written  by  Kouo  pho  in  324 
A.  D.,  in  the  following  words: 

44  The  magnet  draws  the  iron,  and  the  amber  attracts 
mustard  seeds.  There  is  a  breath  which  penetrates 
secretly  and  with  velocity,  and  which  communicates  itself 
imperceptibly  to  that  which  corresponds  to  it  in  the  other 
object.  It  is  an  inexplicable  thing."1 

But  this  is  nothing  more  than  a  restatement  of  the  Euro- 
pean notion  of  the  flow,  or  virtue,  or  current,  or  soul, 
emanating  from  the  stone  or  the  amber,  with  which  the- 
ory the  western  civilized  world  was  then  familiar,  and 
which,  it  is  safe  to  say,  involves  a  power  of  abstract  con- 
ception which  the  Chinese  mind  has  never  possessed.  In 
fact,  the  originator  of  such  an  interpretation  of  a  physical 
happening,  of  necessity  finds  in  it  an  explanation  satis- 
factory at  least  to  his  own  mind;  and  it  does  not  seem 
logically  possible,  as  a  part  of  one  and  the  same  mental 
process,  that  he  could  regard  the  effect  as  "inexplicable." 

The  attraction  of  the  lodestone  is  referred  to  in  a  later 
Chinese  work  on  natural  history,  in  which  the  magnet  is 
said  to  draw  iron  ulike  a  tender  mother  who  causes  her 
children  to  come  to  her,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  it  has 
received  its  name."  2 

It  is  necessary  to  distinguish  clearly  between  the  land 

Klaproth,  cit.  sup.,  p.  125. 

2  Pen-thsao-chy-i  of  Tchin  thsang  khi,  published  727  A.  D.,  noted  by 
Klaproth,  cit.  sup. 


THE  CHINESE  GEOMANCER'S  COMPASS.  75 

use  of  the  compass — as  for  directing  carriages,  locating 
buildings,  etc. — and  its  employment  for  finding  the  way  at 
sea,  the  latter  being  by  far  the  more  important. 

So  far,  it  will  be  noted,  no  marine  use  of  the  compass 
by  the  Chinese  has  been  suggested.  The  first  passage, 
remotely  capable  of  such  interpretation,  appears  in  the 
official  history  of  the  Soung  dynasty,  which,  after  men- 
tioning the  carts,  says  that  u  under  the  Tsin  dynasty  (265 
to  419  A.  D.)  there  were  also  ships  indicating  the  south." 
During  the  same  period  Shih-hu  is  said  to  have  built  a 
boat  provided  with  a  south-pointing  magnet,  and  to  have 
used  it  on  the  "  Pond  of  the  Cackling  Crane,"  but  this 
seems  at  most  to  have  been  but  a  toy. l  No  definite  state- 
ment, however,  is  found  until  the  end  of  the  nth  century 
is  reached,  and  then,  in  a  work  entitled  Mung-Khi-pi- 
than,2  we  meet  the  following  extraordinary  passage: 

"The  soothsayers  rub  a  needle  with  the  magnet  stone, 
so  that  it  may  mark  the  south;  however,  it  declines  con- 
stantly a  little  to  the  east.  It  does  not  indicate  the  south 
exactly.  When  this  needle  floats  on  the  water  it  is  much 
agitated.  If  the  finger-nails  touch  the  upper  edge  of  the 
basin  in  which  it  floats  they  agitate  it  strongly;  only  it 
continues  to  slide,  and  falls  easily.  It  is  better,  in  order 
to  show  its  virtues  in  the  best  way,  to  suspend  it  as  follows: 
Take  a  single  filament  from  a  piece  of  new  cotton  and  at- 
tach it  exactly  to  the  middle  of  the  needle  by  a  bit  of  wax 
as  large  as  a  mustard  seed.  Hang  it  up  in  a  place  where 
there  is  no  wind.  Then  the  needle  constantly  shows  the 
south;  but  among  such  needles  there  are  some  which, 
being  rubbed,  indicate  the  north.  Our  soothsayers  have 
some  which  show  south  and  some  which  show  north.  Of 
this  property  of  the  magnet  to  indicate  the  south,  like 
that  of  the  cypress  to  show  the  west,  no  one  can  tell  the 
origin. ' ' 

*De  Lacouperie:  cit.  sup.,  noting  the  Tsin  Kung  Koh  Ki  of  the  4th 
century.     See  also  note  2,  page  76. 
2  Thsa-chi,  book  24,  cit.  by  Biot. 


76  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Almost  exactly  the  same  recital  appears  in  a  medical 
history  composed  in  the  years  mi  to  IH7.1  And  it  has 
been  claimed  that  a  record  exists  of  the  use  of  the  compass 
on  board  the  ship  which  carried  a  Chinese  ambassador 
from  Ning-po  to  Corea  during  the  year  H22.2 

Two  very  significant  facts  may  here  be  noted,  namely, 
that  exactly  the  same  knowledge  (the  variation  of  the  needle 
excepted)  existed  in  undoubted  connection  with  the  nau- 
tical compass  in  Europe  at  a  closely  approximate  period ; 
and  second,  that  in  the  before  quoted  description  of  two 
instruments  no  nautical  employment  of  either  of  them  is 
suggested.  The  latter  fact  is  fully  recognized  by  Klap- 
roth,  who  admits  that  he  can  find  "no  indubitable  use" 
of  the  compass  in  the  Chinese  marine  until  toward  the 
end  of  the  I3th  century,  at  which  time,  as  will  hereafter 
be  abundantly  proved,  it  had  been  on  European  ships  for 
a  hundred  years. 

The  tendency  of  the  magnetic  needle  to  depart  from 
true  north  (commonly  termed  its  variation),  appears  to 
have  been  observed  by  the  Chinese  geomancers  in  the 
compasses  used  by  them,  long  before  any  marine  use  of 
the  instrument  was  made.  A  so-called  life  of  Yi-hing,  a 
Buddhist  priest  and  imperial  astronomer,  undertakes  to 
show  that  the  variation  in  the  8th  century  was  nearly 
three  degrees  to  the  right,  or  west  of  south.  Later,  we 
find  the  geomancers  adding  special  circles  of  symbols  to 
the  compass  card;  such  as  a  circle  of  nine  fictitious  stars, 
a  circle  of  sixty  dragons,  and  so  on;  and,  among  these, 
circles  of  points  especially  constructed  to  allow  for  varia- 
tion. This  was  done  in  the  year  900  by  Yang  Yi  when 
the  variation  was  5°  15'  east  of  south,  and  again  three 
centuries  later  when  it  had  increased  to  7°  30',  in  the  same 
direction. 

Such,  in  brief,  is  the  evidence  which   the   Chinese  re- 

1  Pen  thsao  yan  i,  quoted  by  Klaproth,  68. 

2  Trans.  Asiat.  Soc.  of  Japan,  1880,  viii.  475.    Jour.  North  China  Branch 
Roy.  As.  Soc.,  New  Ser.,  xi.,  123.     Shanghae,  1877. 


ANCIENT  CHINESE   NAVIGATION.  77 

cords  have  yielded.  Let  us  now  turn  to  the  characteristics 
and  achievements  of  the  people  themselves,  and  endeavor 
to  ascertain  therefrom  the  probabilities  of  the  existence  of 
their  claimed  early  knowledge  of  the  magnet,  and  whether 
circumstances  favored  their  invention  of  the  compass  or 
discovery  of  electrical  effects. 

The  Phoenician  traders  and  other  navigators  of  the 
Indian  Ocean  reached  the  Shantung  peninsula  in  the  7th 
century  B.  C.  and  monopolized  the  sea  traffic  of  the  coast. 
This  maritime  intercourse  appears  to  have  terminated  be- 
fore the  end  of  the  4th  century,  the  more  convenient  route 
through  Indo-China  having  diverted  the  trade.  From 
these  hardy  seafarers  the  Chinese  seem  to  have  learned 
little  or  nothing.1  Agriculture,  as  I  have  already  noted, 
was  the  chief  pursuit  of  the  Chinese  in  the  beginning  of 
their  history,  and  has  so  remained.  In  nautical  belief,  the 
farmer  is  always  the  opposite  of  the  sailor;  or,  in  other 
words,  his  is  the  calling  which  the  seaman  regards  as 
furthest  removed  from  his  own.  The  maritime  powers  of 
a  nation  are  always  the  last  in  reaching  maturity;  and 
those  of  one  which  is  pre-eminently  agricultural  in  its 
pursuits  either  never  attain  that  point,  or  else,  if  the 
Chinese  be  taken  as  typical,  require  a  greater  time  for  de- 
velopment than  is  included  at  present  within  historical 
limits.  The  Chinese,  moreover,  have  been  united  for  ages 
in  one  inflexible  system  of  manners,  letters  and  polity,  and 
have  dwelt  upon  land  capable  of  supporting  them;  so  that 
there  has  been  little  natural  inducement  to  them  to  enter 
into  communication  with  the  rest  of  the  world.  The  bor- 
dering nations  were,  for  centuries,  far  lower  in  the  scale 
of  civilization,  and  could  offer  nothing  to  barter  but 
raw  materials,  of  which  China  had  either  an  abundant 
natural  supply,  or  for  which  she  had  no  use.  True,  navi- 
gation of  the  great  rivers  which  irrigated  the  country  be- 

1  The  eyes  on  the  bows  of  Chinese  junks  (also  present  on  modern  Dutch 
boats)  are  said  to  have  been  copied  from  ancient  Phrenician  vessels. 
Perrot-Chipiez,  Hist,  de  1'Art,  iii.,  517. 


78  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

gan  at  an  early  date;. but  river  navigation  does  not  make 
and  never  has  made  deep-sea  sailors.  The  Chinese  streams, 
like  the  Egyptian  Nile,  were  merely  highways  (and,  in  some 
cases,  practically  streets,  whereon  the  dwellings  of  the  in- 
habitants floated  about,  as  they  still  do),  and,  so  far  from 
the  aquatic  life  to  which  they  give  rise,  evolving  seamen, 
the  greater  facilities  for  interior  communication  afforded 
by  the  rivers  and  canals  rendered  it  easier  for  the  dwellers 
on  the  seaboard  to  draw  upon  inland  sources  of  supply, 
than  to  seek  foreign  ones  across  the  unknown  waters. 

Nor  were  their  coasts  or  the  adjacent  seas  favorable  to 
navigation ;  while  the  Chinese  ships,  to  the  sailors  of  the 
western  world,  have  always  seemed  the  very  opposite  of 
what  sea-going  vessels  should  be.  The  huge  junks,  with 
bulging  hulls  and  high  sterns,  were  modeled  after  popular 
notions  of  sea  monsters,  the  teeth  and  eyes  of  which  were 
depicted  on  the  bows,  and  the  fins  imitated  in  the  shapes 
of  the  sails.  The  typhoons  upset  them  or  drove  them  upon 
the  reefs,  or  blew  them  helplessly  far  out  to  sea.  Yet,  with 
singular  ingenuity,  their  builders  constructed  them  with 
double  skins  and  with  water-tight  compartments,  long  be- 
fore the  sea-kings  of  the  west  dreamed  of  such  safeguards. 

The  early  voyages  of  the  Chinese  were  merely  coasting 
trips  made  by  the  river  boats,  which  crawled  timorously 
along  the  shore.  No  sea-going  ships  were  built  until  139 
B.  C.  At  the  time  of  the  Christian  era,  the  Chinese  knew 
scarcely  anything  of  the  nearest  islands  to  the  eastward, 
and  in  the  ad  century  it  is  doubtful  whether  they  ever 
sailed  beyond  the  extreme  point  of  the  Shantung  penin- 
sula. At  this  time  a  fifteen  ton  boat  was  considered 
enormous.  In  the  3d  century  some  desultory  traffic  was 
carried  on  with  Japan,  but  after  that  period  the  extension 
of  sea  commerce  was  slow.  At  the  beginning  of  the  5th 
century  Java  had  not  been  reached,  and  not  until  fifty 
years  later  did  Chinese  junks  venture  as  far  as  Ceylon  and 
the  Persian  Gulf.1  All  this  is  doubly  significant  as  show- 

1  De  Lacouperie,  cit.  sup. 


ANCIENT  CHINESE   ASTRONOMY.  79 

ing  first,  that  at  the  commencement  of  this  great  period  of 
six  hundred  years  there  was  no  deep-sea  sailing  which 
called  for  the  use  of  the  compass;  and  second,  that  toward 
the  end  of  it,  although  voyages  were  made  wherein  the 
guidance  of  the  magnetic  needle  would  have  been  of  great 
utility,  and  although  the  traditions  of  the  south-pointing 
carts  then  became  more  numerous,  still  no  similar  records 
have  been  encountered  showing  that  ships  were  steered  by 
the  lodestone's  aid. 

Arguments  in  support  of  the  presumed  knowledge  of 
the  Chinese  regarding  navigation  are  often  based  on  their 
alleged  attainments  in  astronomy  ;  for  they  have  undoubt- 
edly studied  the  phenomena  dealt  with  by  that  science, 
since  time  immemorial.  But  their  calculations  of  eclipses 
have  been  found  erroneous  ;  and  the  astronomer  Cassini, 
in  examining  an  observation  of  one  winter  solstice  very 
celebrated  in  their  annals,  discovered  therein  an  error  of  no 
less  than  487  years.  They  are  rather  astrologers  than 
astronomers,  and  their  tribunal  of  mathematics,  existing, 
as  it  has,  for  centuries,  has  found  its  chief  occupation  in 
indicating  to  the  Government  fortunate  days  for  national 
enterprises  or  ceremonials  rather  than  in  gathering  the  re- 
sults of  observation.  In  brief,  their  system  of  astronomy 
is  rigidity  itself,  and  if  its  predictions  fail  they  argue  that 
the  fault  is  not  in  themselves,  but  in  their  stars,  and  settle 
the  matter  by  deferring  further  prophecy  until  after  the 
event. 

The  student  who  attempts  to  glean  from  the  early  mis- 
sionary writers  on  China  any  definite  information  as  to  the 
real  status  of  her  people  in  fields  of  invention  or  discovery, 
will  find  himself  confronted  by  an  abundance  of  exagger- 
ated statements  and  contradictions  innumerable.  The 
later  Italian  and  French  authors,  who  have  endeavored  to 
reconcile  these,  fail  to  do  so,  and  unite  in  regarding  the 
missionary  reports  as  generally  unreliable.  Nor  can  fa- 
vorable inferences  be  drawn  from  other  achievements 
ascribed  to  the  Chinese.  They  invented  a  written  char- 


80  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

acter  of  their  own,  but  only  with  syllabic,  and  not  phonetic, 
symbols.  They  are  credited  with  the  invention  of  gun- 
powder, but  it  is  an  open  question  whether  they  did  not 
get  it  originally  from  India.  They  knew  of  it  as  early  as 
250  A.  D.,  but  then  only  used  it  in  fire-crackers.  No  evi- 
dence exists  of  its  use  as  an  agent  of  warfare  earlier  than 
the  middle  of  the  I2th  century,  nor  did  the  Chinese  know 
anything  of  its  propulsive  effects  until  the  reign  of  Yung 
loh  in  the  I5th  century,  after  it  was  first  employed  for 
festival  and  ceremonial  purposes.1  They  invented  the 
abacus,  but  not  the  positional  value  of  figures. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  credit  of  first  printing  from 
carved  wooden  tablets,  or  from  movable  porcelain  type, 
inventing  India  ink,  chop-sticks,  silk  manufacture  and  the 
macadamization  of  streets  is  seldom  denied  to  them. 
Their  persistent  conservatism,  to  some,  is  a  potent  argu- 
ment in  support  of  the  proposition  that  whatever  they  have 
adopted  must  be  sanctioned  by  immemorial  usage.  On 
this  ground  many  of  the  pro-Chinese  writers  take  a  firm 
stand.  Barrow,  for  example,  considers  that  the  astrological 
inscriptions  on  the  card  of  the  modern  Chinese  compass  is 
quite  sufficient  evidence  of  an  extreme  antiquity.  They 
have  engrafted  upon  it,  he  says,  "their  most  ancient  and 
favorite  system  of  mythology,  their  constellations  and 
cycles,  and,  in  short,  the  abstract  of  the  elements.  That 
a  people  so  remarkably  tenacious  of  ancient  custom,  and 
thinking  so  very  meanly  of  other  nations,  would  ever  have 
submitted  to  incorporate  their  rooted  superstitions  by  en- 
graving on  the  margin  the  sacred  and  mystical  characters 
of  Fo  Shu  with  an  instrument  of  recent  introduction  and 
barbarian  invention "  he  regards  as  incredible.  To  this 
may  be  added  the  fact  that  to  the  magnet  the  Chinese  have 
always  paid  divine  honors.  "An  astonishing  number  of 
offerings,"  says  the  missionary  GutzlafT,  "are  brought  to 
the  magnet;  a  piece  of  red  cloth  is  thrown  over  it,  incense 
is  kindled  before  it,  and  gold  paper,  in  the  form  of  a 

1  Barrow:  A  Voyage  to  Cochin  China  in  the  years  1792-3.     Lond.,  1806. 


DOUBTS   AS  TO  THE  SOUTH-POINTING  CARTS.          8 1 

Chinese  ship,  is  burnt.'*  Barrow  also  notes  that  a  Chi- 
nese navigator  not  only  considers  the  magnet  needle  as  a 
guide  to  direct  his  track  through  the  ocean,  but  is  per- 
suaded that  the  spirit  by  which  its  motions  are  influenced 
is  the  guardian  deity  of  his  vessel. 

From  the  actual  Chinese  records  we  have  now  found 
that  the  legends  of  south-pointing  chariots  antedating  the 
Christian  Era  are  probably  mythical.  No  reference  to  the 
lodestone  appears  in  Chinese  literature  until  121  A.  D. 
If  Chinese  knowledge  of  the  magnet  dates  from  about  this 
time,  then,  certainly,  so-called  south-pointing  chariots 
existing  at  an  earlier  period  could  not  have  been  magnetic, 
and  the  omission  of  any  mention  of  the  lodestone  in  the 
descriptions  of  them  follows  of  necessity.  If,  after  121 
A.  D.,  the  magnet  was  used  in  them,  then  it  is  difficult  to 
reconcile  this  with  the  fact  that  the  later  writings  continued 
to  describe  the  chariots  in  the  same  terms  for  centuries 
and  until  long  after  the  compass  had  come  into  general 
use  in  Europe,  and  never  contained  a  word  concerning  the 
agency  upon  which  their  south-pointing  virtue  depended. 
It  is,  moreover,  a  curious  circumstance  that  while  the  first 
south-pointing  chariot  known  in  Japan  was  constructed  by 
a  Buddhist  priest  in  658  A.  D.,  the  lodestone  itself  was  not 
found  in  that  country  until  nearly  half  a  century  later.1 

No  recorded  evidence  of  the  attraction  of  the  magnet  or 
amber  appears  in  the  Chinese  books  of  earlier  date  than 
the  fourth  century  of  our  era,  and  then  we  find  it  explained 
by  a  physical  theory  totally  out  of  harmony  with  Chinese 
modes  of  thought  and  the  same  as  that  which  had  been 
advanced  by  the  Greeks,  eight  hundred  years  before. 

Turning  to  the  characteristics  of  the  people  themselves, 
it  is  undeniable  that  among  them  have  originated  many 
inventions  of  great  importance.  But  each  achievement  is 
isolated.  It  cannot  be  traced  in  correlation  with  anything 
else,  nor  as  the  result  of  any  evolutionary  process  or  grad- 
ual development.  Nothing  is  more  clear  than  the  ab- 

1Klaproth,  pp.  93-94. 


82  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

sence,  in  Chinese  thought,  of  the  processes  incident  to 
inductive  reasoning.  They  possess  a  sort  of  inventive 
automatism;  and  in  the  results  they  have  achieved,  the 
environment  appears  to  have  been  by  far  the  more  potent 
factor  than  the  brain.  This  faculty  they  probably  have, 
and  always  have  had,  in  higher  degree  than  any  other 
people.  But  they  have  chiefly  expended  their  brain 
energy,  so  to  speak,  upon  a  multitude  of  rites,  ceremonies 
and  inflexible  customs,  governing  and  restricting  every 
phase  of  their  existence;  and  upon  the  acquisition  by  rote, 
of  the  contents  of  volumes  of  precepts  and  historical  tradi- 
tions, which  find  no  practical  applications.  The  conse- 
quence is  minds  of  stunted  or  abnormal  growth,  capable 
of  great  subjective  action  and  the  grinding  out  thereby 
of  many  words  ;  but  even  under  the  influence  of  the  needs 
of  three  hundred  and  fifty  million  people,  and  aided  by 
favorable  temperature  and  abundant  physical  resources, 
incapable  of  taking  more  than  the  first  inventive  step. 

Their  love  for  the  marvelous  and  supernatural  is  fos- 
tered by  their  national  customs.  Their  unwillingness  to 
learn  from  the  outer  barbarian,  is  exhibited  in  the  dis- 
astrous consequences  of  their  war  with  the  Japanese. 
They  degraded  the  science  of  astronomy  into  mere  astrol- 
ogy. They  have  produced  no  great  picture,  no  famous 
statue  faithfully  representing  nature,  although  they  have 
handled  the  brush  and  chisel  with  consummate  skill  for 
ages.  But  they  are  the  most  wonderfully  cunning  of  imi- 
tators in  the  world. 

The  data  which  has  now  been  presented  concerning  the 
Chinese,  lead  to  the  following  conclusions : 

If  the  south-pointing  chariots  which  existed  prior  to  the 
1 2th  century  A.  D.,  be  regarded  (despite  the  doubts  sug- 
gested) as  governed  by  a  south-pointing  magnetic  needle, 
or  if  the  traditions  of  such  a  needle  in  the  hands  of  the 
geomancers  be  accepted  as  true,  then  Chinese  annals  fur- 
nish the  earliest  recorded  proof  of  the  turning  of  magnetic 
polarity  to  useful  account.  But  the  same  records  give  no 


POSSIBLE  PREHISTORIC  USE  OF  THE   LODESTONE.      83 

information  as  to  how  the  discovery  was  made,  or  when  it 
was  made.  As  to  the  first,  the  Chinese  legends  are  gro- 
tesque and  incredible  ;  as  to  the  second,  the  traditions  are 
hopelessly  conflicting,  save  in  that  all  refer  to  periods  in 
remote  antiquitVe 

The  prehistoric  people  from  the  western  Asia  migrated, 
as  I  have  said,  in  all  directions ;  the  Finns,  for  example, 
going  northward,  and  the  Mongols  eastward,  and  Etrus- 
cans, perhaps,  westward  or  southward.  If  the  hypothesis 
be  accepted  provisionally,  that  the  parent  race  knew  of  the 
directive  tendency  of  the  lodestone,  and  that  all  of  its  off- 
shoots could  thus  have  used  it  during  their  migrations  as  a 
means  of  guidance  over  the  deserts  and  wildernesses,  it 
follows,  of  course,  that  the  discovery  was  not  originally 
made  on  territory  which  has  ever  been  recognized  as 
Chinese,  or  by  the  Mongols  exclusively  ;  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, was  a  part  of  the  stock  of  knowledge  which  the  dif- 
ferent tribes  once  possessed  in  common.  Now,  bearing  in 
mind  the  conservative,  inelastic,  non-progressive  character 
of  the  Chinese,  and  their  seeming  inability  to  advance  be- 
yond the  first  act  of  discovery  or  invention,  it  apparently 
follows  that  the  directing  needle  might  well  continue 
among  them  in  its  original  state,  and  thus  remain  applied 
for  ages  only  to  its  original  uses.  Therefore,  we  should 
naturally  expect  to  find  familiarity  with  the  needle  only 
as  a  means  of  land  guidance,  and  used  either  for  in- 
dicating a  quarter  of  the  horizon,  or  for  establishing 
lines  in  definite  direction,  as  in  placing  buildings,  lay- 
ing out  tunnels,  etc.  This  comports  with  the  facts.  The 
Chinese,  having  a  great  expanse  of  territory,  would  have 
use  for  the  land  compass  in  traveling  over  long  dis- 
tances ;  equally  their  religious  system,  as  well  as  their 
engineering  knowledge,  called  for  its  employment  in 
the  establishing  of  sites  for  their  edifices.  The  Etrus- 
cans, belonging  to  the  same  Altaic  group,  had  but  small 
territory,  and,  therefore,  no  need  for  the  guidance  of  the 
stone  in  traversing  it;  but,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out, 


84  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

their  augurs,  corresponding  to  the  Chinese  geomancers, 
knew  the  cardinal  points,  and  were  able  to  fix  them,  and 
the  alignments  of  the  Etruscan  walls,  and  especially  of  the 
tunnels  and  sewers,  are  made  with  an  accuracy  which  it  is 
difficult  to  explain,  unless  the  use  of  the  needle  be  sup- 
posed. As  for  the  existence  of  Chinese  record  evidence, 
and  the  absence  of  like  proof  concerning  a  similar  employ- 
ment of  the  magnet  by  other  nations,  this  finds  a  ready 
explanation  in  the  unchanging  permanence  of  the  Chinese 
community  and  its  customs,  over  a  vast  period  of  time, 
during  which  state  after  state  of  the  Western  world  has 
risen  and  fallen.  The  noteworthy  fact  is  not  that  such 
early  records  exist,  but  that  their  character  is  so  doubtful, 
and  their  number  so  few. 

It  is  true  that  the  actual  Chinese  record,  indicating 
familiarity  with  the  compass  afloat,  is  somewhat  earlier  in 
date  than  the  first  European  record  of  similar  purport,  but 
on  the  other  hand  the  latter,  as  will  hereafter  be  abund- 
antly shown,  describes  the  instrument  in  use  as  one  which 
European  navigators  had  long  known.  Moreover,  the 
construction  of  the  first  European  compass  clearly  demon- 
strates it  to  be  the  product  of  an  evolution  which,  in  view 
of  the  slow  intellectual  and  inventive  progress  of  the  time, 
must  have  extended  over  a  period  far  greater  than  the 
interval  which  separates  the  two  epochs. 

Further  than  this  I  am  impressed  by  the  fact  that  I  have 
been  unable  to  find  any  series  of  connecting  links  by  which 
Chinese  knowledge  of  the  instrument  could  have  been 
brought  to  Europe,  during  the  twelfth  century  or  earlier, 
through  channels  of  navigation  and  trade,  and  that  in 
reviewing  such  possibilities  of  communication  as  have 
been  suggested  serious  doubts  have  always  appeared. 
On  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  said  that  it  does  not  follow 
that  the  intelligence  spread  through  any  of  the  regular 
channels  of  international  intercourse,  but  may  have  come 
through  chance  travel  between  Europe  and  the  far  East. 
Against  this  hypothesis  stands  the  fact  that  the  presence 


THE  MARINER'S  COMPASS,  NOT  CHINESE.          85 

of  the  compass  in  the  early  European  fleets,  manned  by 
natural  and  instinctive  seafarers,  can  be  reasonably  ac- 
counted for,  (and  this  I  have  yet  to  show)  while  the  pres- 
ence of  the  compass  on  the  contemporary  Chinese  junks, 
manned  by  people  having  no  inborn  inclination  for  the 
sea,  is  a  circumstance  seemingly  destitute  of  ancestry. 

The  identity  of  construction  of  the  two  instruments, 
European  and  Chinese,  renders  inevitable  the  presump- 
tion that  one  is  an  imitation  of  the  other.  As  between 
people  whose  skill  lies  in  originating  and  people  whose 
skill  lies  in  the  wonderful  minuteness  and  accuracy  of 
their  copies,  few,  I  imagine,  will  hesitate  in  deciding 
which  was  probably  the  re- producer;  or  fail  to  reach  a 
reasonable  conviction  that  the  mariner's  compass  of  the 
East  is  literally  a  "Chinese  copy"  of  the  instrument  which 
led,  not  the  indolent  Asiatic,  but  the  daring  mariners  of 
England  and  Spain  and  Portugal  and  Italy  to  the  most 
magnificent  achievements  of  the  human  race. 


CHAPTER   IV. 

I  HAVK  now  to  resume  the  tracing  of  progress  in  the 
Western  world.  With  the  decline  of  the  divine  school  of 
Alexandria,  which  followed  the  period  of  the  Ptolemies, 
the  inventive  thought  of  civilization  became  almost  sta- 
tionary for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  Mankind  devoted 
itself  to  thinking  in  circles,  and  believing  before  it  under- 
stood. Gradually  the  doctrine  of  faith  in  things  spiritual 
extended  itself  to  things  physical,  and  the  latter,  being 
exalted  above  reason,  became  removed  from  the  field  of 
human  inquiry.  From  the  acceptance  of  the  theory  that 
the  Scriptures  contain  all  the  knowledge  vouchsafed  to 
man,  to  the  interpretation  of  phenomena  by  texts,  and 
the  gauging  of  physical  laws  by  the  rules  of  orthodoxy, 
was  but  a  natural  descent.  The  downward  path  from  the 
splendid  achievements  of  Archimedes  and  Hero  and  Euclid 
was  broad  and  easy,  and  it  ended  in  the  slough  of  the 
schoolmen  and  the  mystics,  wherein  the  world  wandered 
for  centuries,  mistaking  the  fitful  corpse  lights  of  dead 
falsehoods  for  the  clear  daybreak  of  coining  truth. 

Fortunately  for  future  progress,  the  mystery,  which  was 
regarded  as  inseparable  from  the  effects  of  the  magnet  and 
the  amber,  proved  the  salvation  of  continuing  knowledge 
concerning  them.  There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that 
many  of  the  inventions  made  by  the  acute  student  minds 
which  congregated  in  Egypt  were  totally  forgotten  and 
lost  during  the  dark  ages.  It  is  only  recently  that  the 
art  of  portraying  the  human  countenance  in  colors  and 
with  a  skill  in  handling  and  modeling  hitherto  supposed 
to  have  had  its  origin  with  the  painters  of  the  Renaissance, 
has  been  proved  to  have  been  known  and  practised  in  the 
Greek-Egyptian  settlements  dating  from  the  early  centur- 

(86) 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  ON  THE   MAGNET.  87 

ies  of  our  era.  The  machine  which  releases  its  contents 
or  gives  some  information  on  the  insertion  of  a  coin,  and 
which  only  in  recent  years  has  invaded  our  public  places, 
stood  at  the  doors  of  the  Egyptian  temples,  and  automati- 
cally doled  out  its  little  measure  of  consecrated  water  in 
return  for  five  drachmas  dropped  into  the  slot  in  its  recep- 
tacle.1 But  there  was  nothing  surprising  or  mysterious 
about  either  mechanisms  or  portrait  painting.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  magnet  and  the  amber,  both  seemingly 
lifeless,  yet  animated,  formed,  as  it  were,  the  connecting 
link  between  the  dead  earth  and  living  objects.  Short 
of  things  divine  no  greater  mystery  than  this  could  be 
conceived.  It  became  an  ever-present  and  always-ques- 
tioning Sphinx  rearing  itself  above  the  desert  of  ignor- 
ance and  superstition,  in  which,  for  generation  after 
generation,  men  were  doomed  to  strive  and  struggle. 

Through  the  early  centuries  of  the  Christian  Era,  we 
shall  find  this  problem  dealt  with  again  and  again — some- 
times purely  physically,  more  often  metaphorically;  some- 
times by  the  poets,  and  with  greater  frequency  by  the  his- 
torians and  fathers  of  the  church. 

"When  I  first  saw  it,"  says  St.  Augustine,2  speaking 
of  the  attraction  of  the  magnet,  "I  was  thunderstruck 
(uve  hem  enter  inhorrui"\  for  I  saw  an  iron  ring  attracted 
and  suspended  by  the  stone ;  and  then,  as  if  it  had  com- 
municated its  own  property  to  the  iron  it  attracted,  and 
had  made  it  a  substance  like  itself,  this  ring  was  put  near 
another  and  lifted  it  up,  and  as  the  first  ring  clung  to  the 
magnet,  so  did  the  second  ring  to  the  first.  A  third  and 
fourth  were  similarly  added,  so  that  there  hung  from  the 
stone  a  kind  of  chain  of  rings  with  their  hoops  connected, 
not  interlinking,  but  attached  together  by  their  outer  sur- 
face. Who  would  not  be  amazed  at  this  virtue  of  the 
stone,  subsisting,  as  it  does,  not  only  in  itself,  but  trans- 

1  Heronis  Alexandrium  :  Spiritalium  Liber,  Urbini,  1575,  s.  29,  xxi. 
*De  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  21,  c.  4.     (Dod's  Translation.)     Edinburgh,  1871. 


88  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

mitted  through  so  many  suspended  rings  and  binding 
them  together  by  invisible  links?" 

u  Yet  far  more  astonishing  is  what  I  heard  about  the 
stone  from  my  brother  in  the  episcopate,  Severus,  bishop 
of  Milevis.  He  told  me  that  Bathanarius,  once  Count  of 
Africa,  when  the  bishop  was  dining  with  him,  produced  a 
magnet,  and  held  it  under  a  silver  plate  on  which  he 
placed  a  bit  of  iron;  then  as  he  moved  his  hand,  with  the 
magnet  underneath  the  plate,  the  iron  upon  the  plate 
moved  about  accordingly.  The  intervening  silver  was 
not  affected  at  all,  but  precisely  as  the  magnet  was  moved 
backward  and  forward  below  it,  no  matter  how  quickly, 
so  was  the  iron  attracted  above.  I  have  related  what  I 
myself  have  witnessed.  I  have  related  what  I  was  told  by 
one  whom  I  trust  as  I  trust  my  own  eyes." 

Here  is  the  first  statement  of  the  movement  of  a  mag- 
netic body  under  the  control  of  a  moving  magnet.  Lucre- 
tius, as  we  have  seen,  had  told  of  the  to-and-fro  vibration 
of  a  magnetized  ring  as  the  magnetic  poles  presented  to  it 
were  reversed,  of  the  fact  that  brass  intervening  would  not 
cut  off  the  magnetic  virtue,  and  of  the  "raving"  of  the 
iron  filings,  but  not  of  the  pieces  of  iron  actually  following 
the  lodestone,  when  the  latter  was  moved  from  place  to 
place.  St.  Augustine  tells  all  that  was  known  about  the 
magnet  at  his  time.  He  could  have  said  no  more,  and  the 
veriest  stickler  for  didactic  scientific  accuracy,  fresh  from 
his  Aristotle  and  his  Euclid,  could  have  said  it  no  better. 

"L,et  me  further  say  what  I  have  read  about  this  mag- 
net," he  continues.  "When  a  diamond  is  laid  near  it,  it 
does  not  lift  iron;  or,  if  it  has  already  lifted  it,  as  soon  as 
the  diamond  approaches  it  drops  it."  That  error,1  for 

1  For  other  Patristic  writers  referring  to  this  same  delusion  see  Euge- 
nius:  Opusculorum,  P.  ii.,  xxviii. 

Magnes  ferri  color  ferrum  suspendere  novit 
Sit  praesens  adamans,  quod  tenet  ille  cadit. 

Also  Aldhelm  :  Aenigmata.  Lib.  de  Septenario  et  de  metris  8.  De 
maguete  ferrifero. 


ST.  AUGUSTINE  ON  THE   MAGNET.  89 

which  he  will  not  vouch,  lasted  for  fifteen  centuries.  The 
caution  is  characteristic  of  the  author,  who,  at  seventy 
years  of  age,  reviewed  all  his  writings  and  retracted  that 
which  appeared  doubtful  or  extravagant,  and  sought  to 
harmonize  his  opinions  where  they  seemed  in  conflict. 
Elsewhere  he  is  careful  to  distinguish  between  matters  of 
hearsay  and  things  which  he  knows  or  which  can  readily 
be  tested,  and  among  these  last  he  includes  quicklime, 
which  burns  in  water  and  remains  cold  in  oil,  and  the 
magnet;  and  then  he  says  that  he  does  not  know  by  what 
imperceptible  potion  the  lodestone  refuses  to  move  straws 
and  yet  snatches  the  iron.1 

That  was  a  significant  question.  It  marks  the  first 
dawning  notion  of  some  possible  difference  between  amber 
attraction  and  magnet  attraction.  Why  should  the  lode- 
stone  move  iron,  and  yet  be  powerless  to  stir  the  light 
chaff?  Why  should  the  amber  draw  the  chaff,  and  yet  be 
unable  to  attract  iron?  The  querist  believed  the  resin  and 
the  stone  to  be  generically  the  same.  Hence,  the  anomaly 
which  surprises  him.  The  Chinese  Kouopho  who  said,  a 
century  earlier,  that  the  amber  and  magnet  effects  were 
inexplicable,  had  not  perceived  that  the  mustard  seeds 
which  flew  to  the  amber  refused  to  obey  the  call  of  the 
stone. 

When  this  difference  was  suggested,  then  the  rise  of 
electrical  knowledge,  in  human  thought,  began  to  move 
in  parallel  channels.  The  world  waited  for  a  dozen  cen- 
turies before  finally  recognizing  the  distinction  and  sepa- 
rating the  phenomena  into  those  which  were  electric  or 
amber-like  and  those  which  were  lodestone-like  or  mag- 
netic ;  but  the  first  suggestion  of  it  came,  none  the  less, 
from  the  great  philosopher  and  saint  of  the  early  church. 

It  may  appear  singular  that  St.  Augustine  should  have 
referred  to  the  mystery  of  the  magnet  and  amber,  not  in 
any  metaphorical  way,  but  in  the  form  of  statement  of 
actually-observed  physical  fact.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 

1  De  Civ.  Dei,  lib.  21,  c.  vi. 


90  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

it  is  evident  that  in  no  stronger  manner  could  he  have 
used  his  knowledge  of  magnetic  attraction  in  order  to 
accomplish  his  object :  a  defense  of  miracles  and  to  depre- 
cate the  demand  that  the  latter  should  be  explained  by 
human  reason.  If,  he  argues  in  substance,  man  cannot 
explain  these  plain  natural  occurrences,  how  can  man  be 
expected  to  explain  events  that  are  supernatural?  "When 
we  declare  the  miracles  which  God  has  wrought  or  will 
yet  work,  and  which  we  cannot  bring  under  the  very  eyes 
of  men,  skeptics  keep  demanding  that  we  shall  explain 
these  by  reason,  and  because  we  cannot  do  so,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  above  human  comprehension,  they  say  that 
we  are  speaking  falsely." 

St.  Gregorius  Nyssenus  l  also  describes  the  communica- 
tion of  the  magnetic  virtue  from  one  piece  of  iron  to  an- 
other with  simple  accuracy,  but  in  most  of  the  Patristic 
writings  which  refer  to  it  the  phenomenon  is  dealt  with  as 
illustrative  of  the  attraction  of  the  soul  to  Deity,  of  Divine 
control,  or  of  the  permeation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

"For  although  God  appeared  to  material  things,"  says 
Tertullian,2  "yet  He  did  not  injure  them  because  of  grace, 
and  approached,  but  did  not  become  of  them,  like  the  mag- 
net to  iron. "  "If  the  magnet  and  amber  have  the  strength 
to  draw  rings  and  reeds  and  chaff,"  says  St.  Jerome,3  "how 
much  the  more  irresistibly  can  the  Lord  of  all  created 
things  draw  unto  Himself  that  which  He  desires."  St. 
Ambrose,*  after  describing  how  the  magnetic  virtue  most 
strongly  affects  the  ring  next  adherent  to  the  magnet,  and 
is  weakest  in  the  last  ring  of  the  chain,  finds  in  this  an 
illustration  of  the  gradual  lapse  of  the  soul  from  the  pure 
state  to  sin.  St.  Gregory  Nazianzenus5  sees  in  the  united 
rings  an  illustration  of  the  binding  power  of  the  Spirit. 
Theodoritus,  Bishop  of  Cyrrhus,6  referring  to  the  capability 

1  De  Homine,  cap.  i.  2Lib.  adv.  Hermogenem,  cxliv. 

'Comment,  in  Ev.  Matthaei,  Lib.  i,  cxix.,  50. 
•Epist.,  xlv.,  983.  6Oratio,  de  se  ipso. 

6  De  Curatione  Infidelium  Graecorum,  ser.  5. 


THE   MAGNET   IN   PATRISTIC  WRITINGS.  91 

of  the  magnet  of  selecting  iron  only  and  lifting  up  that 
metal,  holding  it  without  visible  prop  from  beneath  or 
apparent  means  of  suspension  from  above,  and  all  by  some 
hidden  or  occult  cause,  declares  that  this  does  no  more  than 
does  the  word  of  God  for  all  men,  if  they  would  only  give 
ear  to  it.  Yet,  though  many  listen,  only  the  faithful  are 
garnered  ;  while  not  even  to  these  is  held  out  the  consola- 
tion of  earthly  happiness  below,  nor  is  the  bond  which 
unites  them  to  heaven  above  manifest.  Hence,  it  is  some- 
thing unknown,  or  rather  the  hope  of  it,  which  supports 
them,  even  as  the  unknown  virtue  of  the  magnet  raises  and 
supports  the  iron. 

Nevertheless,  the  tendency  of  the  early  teachers  of  Chris- 
tendom was  to  discourage  the  study  of  natural  philosophy. 
The  momentous  questions  involved  in  the  new  faith,  in 
their  estimation,  so  completely  dwarfed  all  mundane  issues, 
that  the  search  for  physical  truth  seemed  but  a  misapplica- 
tion of  the  mental  powers,  which  should  be  devoted  solely 
to  the  consideration  of  moral  duties  and  the  future  world. 
"It  is  not  through  ignorance  of  the  things  admired  by 
them,"  says  Eusebius,1  "but  through  contempt  of  their 
useless  labor  that  we  think  little  of  these  matters,  turning 
our  souls  to  the  exercise  of  better  things."  All  physical 
reasoning  was  denounced  as  "empty  and  false  ;"  and  to 
dispute  concerning  such  matters  as  the  dimensions  of  the 
sun,  the  nature  of  the  heavenly  bodies  and  the  magnitude 
of  the  earth,  "is  just  as  if  we  chose  to  discuss  what  we 
think  of  a  city  in  a  remote  country  of  which  we  never 
heard  but  the  name."2 

Such  being  the  attitude  of  the  most  cultivated  minds 
toward  scientific  research,  it  necessarily  ceased.  St.  Isi- 
dore, in  his  encylopedic  "Etymologies,"  3  at  the  end  of 
the  6th  century,  adds  nothing  to  the  facts  reported  by 
St.  Augustine,  and  repeats  the  same  account  of  the  Samo- 
thracian  rings  and  the  silver  plate,  with  a  few  additions, 
mainly  derived  from  Pliny. 

1  Praep.  Ev.,  xv  ,  61.     2  Lactautius,  liii.,  init.     3Originum,  lib.  xvi.,  iv. 


92  THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  last  description  of  the  ancient  magnetic  contriv- 
ances is  given  by  Ruffinus,1  writing  in  390,  and  he  men- 
tions those  in  the  Serapeum  in  Alexandria,  as  merely 
intended  to  deceive  the  people.  A  little  window  was  ar- 
ranged near  the  statute  of  Serapis,  so  that,  at  sunrise,  a 
beam  would  fall  upon  the  lips  ;  and  this  the  priests 
explained  as  the  sun's  morning  salutation  ;  while,  at  sun- 
set, an  iron  figure  of  the  sun,  delicately  counterbalanced, 
was  made  to  rise  by  the  attraction  of  a  magnet  concealed 
in  the  roof,  and  that  was  the  sun's  good-night.  "But 
there  were  so  many  other  means  of  deception,"  adds  the 
chronicler  hopelessly,  "that  it  is  impossible  to  tell  them 
all."  It  is  said  that  while  the  image  of  Serapis  was  falling 
under  the  blows  of  a  battle-axe  in  the  hands  of  one  of  the 
destroying  party  which  Archbishop  Theophilus,  in  his 
furious  zeal,  led  to  the  Serapeum,  a  stray  invader  wander- 
ing through  the  recesses  of  the  temple,  found  the  hidden 
magnet  in  the  roof,  and  removed  it ;  and,  thereupon,  a 
four-horse  chariot,  which  had  been  suspended  in  the  air, 
came  crashing  to  the  pavement.2 

The  last  part  of  the  narration  is  often  criticised  as  fabu- 
lous, under  the  assumption  that  the  four-horse  chariot, 
which  probably  was  the  iron  image  of  the  sun  described 
by  Ruffinus,  was  caused  to  float  in  the  air  with  no  support 
save  magnetic  attraction  ;  but  if,  as  Ruffinus  states,  it  was 
carried  on  the  arm  of  a  balanced  lever,  the  improbability 
is  not  so  manifest. 

During  the  four  centuries  of  undivided  Roman  empire, 
beginning  with  the  reign  of  Augustus  Caesar  and  ending 
with  that  of  Constantine  (306  A.  D.),  the  names  of  Dioscor- 
ides  the  Cilician,3  and  Galen  of  Pergamus,4  stand  out  most 
prominently  as  observers  of  nature.  But  Galen  tells  us 
merely  that  the  magnet  and  the  Heraclean  stone  are  the 
same  thing,  and  resemble  haematite  or  bloodstone  ;  and 

1Hist.  Eccles.,  lib.  ii.,  294. 

2  Draper  :  Int.  Dev.  of  Europe,  i..  320. 

8  Lib.  5,  c.,  100.  *Lib.  Sim.  Med.,  ix. 


CLAUDIAN'S  IDYL.  93 

Dioscorides,  after  announcing  that  the  best  magnet  at- 
tracts iron  most  readily,  is  blue,  dense  and  not  too  heavy, 
suddenly  exhausts  his  knowledge  with  the  rather  inconse- 
quent remark  that  three  drachms  of  pulverized  magnet, 
taken  in  sweetened  water,  will  prevent  fat.  There  was 
also  Alexander  of  Aphrodiseus,  who  lived  in  Caracalla's 
time,  and  who,  though  far  less  known  than  the  preceding 
philosopher,  nevertheless  invented  the  distillation  of  sea- 
water,  and  suggested  that  the  same  process  might  be  ap- 
plied to  wine.1  He  said  that  the  attraction  of  magnet  and 
of  amber  is  inexplicable,  in  which  he  agreed  with  the 
Chinese  philosopher  Kouopho  ;  but  to  him  is  appar- 
ently due  the  credit  of  having  evolved  the  theory  that  the 
magnet  actually  eats  and  feeds  on  iron,  a  notion  which 
lasted  some  twelve  hundred  years,  and  was  very  prevalent 
in  the  i6th  century.  Marcellus  Empiricus,2  physician  to 
Theodosius  the  Great,  wrote  that  the  magnet  both  at- 
tracted and  repelled  iron,  the  last  property  being  termed 
by  him  antiphyson.  This,  however,  was  in  the  4th 
century  A.  D.,  and  hence  long  after  Lucretius  and  Plu- 
tarch had  referred  to  the  same  phenomenon. 

From  the  grave  homilies  of  Jerome  or  the  sombre  lines 
of  Lucretius  to  the  gay  and  voluptuous  idyl  of  Claudian  3 
is  a  far  cry;  but  the  subject  which  could  inspire  the  saint 
and  the  philosopher  was  equally  potent  to  influence  the 
volatile  brain  of  the  singer.  He  speaks  of  the  magnet  as  a 
stone,  discolored,  dull  and  vile,  unfit  to  adorn  beauty,  to 
shine  amid  the  purple  of  Caesar  or  to  deck  the  bridle  of  the 
fiery  steed.  And  yet  no  gem  of  Orient  is  so  prized  by  those 
who  know  its  power.  It  lives  by  iron;  without  iron  it 
thirsts  and  dies.  Yet  in  the  statue  of  the  god  of  war  is 
iron,  and  in  that  of  the  goddess  of  love,  the  magnet. 
Wherefore  the  priest  consecrates  the  union  of  these  two 
divinities,  the  sacred  torch  guides  the  chorus,  the  doors 

1  Meteorol.  Comment.     Venet,  1527.     Humboldt :  Cosmos,  562,  589. 
2Klaproth  :  Inv.  de  la  Boussole,  12. 
3  Claudian:  Idyl  V.     Magnes. 


94  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  the  temple  are  hung  with  myrtle,  and,  amid  festoons 
of  purple  and  garlands  of  roses,  there  are  celebrated  the 
nuptials  of  Mars  and  Venus,  while  in  the  love  of  the  mag- 
net and  the  iron  a  new  metaphor  is  given  to  the  world 
which  even  the  greatest  of  its  poets  has  not  disdained  to  use. 

With  the  decadence  of  the  Roman  Empire  the  com- 
mentator waxed  more  and  more  in  strength,  and  original 
thought  became  correspondingly  enfeebled.  Men  forgot 
or  feared  to  consult  nature,  to  seek  for  new  truths,  to  do 
what  the  great  discoverers  of  other  times  had  done;  they 
were  content  to  consult  libraries,  to  study  and  defend  old 
opinions,  to  talk  of  what  great  geniuses  had  said.1  Thus 
no  new  gold  was  mined,  but  the  supply  on  hand  was 
beaten  to  the  last  degree  of  tenuity  or  twisted  into  a 
myriad  of  forms.  The  three  things  which  blocked  progress 
were  the  overshadowing  claims  of  religion  to  the  sole 
domination  of  the  reflecting  mind,  the  prevalence  of  the 
Platonic  doctrine  that  all  science  may  be  evolved  by  the 
use  of  the  reason,  and  the  disposition  to  dispute  about 
terms,  or  to  seek  new  facts  by  new  and  subtle  collocations 
of  words  in  the  endeavor  to  read  nature  through  books. 

From  these  there  became  evolved  first,  a  blind  faith  in 
the  supernatural,  and  in  its  constant  intervention  in  the 
physical  world;  second,  an  imagination  capable  of  conceiv- 
ing such  interference  as  occurring  under  any  and  all  cir- 
cumstances, and  as  being  the  one  and  the  sole  explanation 
for  everything  that  was  in  the  least  respect  phenomenal; 
and,  third,  a  habit  of  dealing  with  all  learning  at  second 
hand,  which  quickly  obliterated  the  distinction  in  value 
between  evidence  of  the  senses  and  mere  hearsay  reports  of 
speculations,  especially  after  the  latter  had  permeated  down 
through  two  or  three  generations  of  commentators.  The 
result  was  mysticism,  injected  into  the  Greek  philosophy 
by  the  Alexandrian  school,  and  then  spreading  through 
the  whole  body  of  human  thought  and  poisoning  it  to  its 
very  centres.  If  the  ancient  Greek  was  so  familiar  with 

1  Whewell :  Hist,  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  i.,  312. 


THE   DECADENCE  OF   PHILOSOPHY.  95 

his  gods  that  they  invaded  every  motive  and  act  of  his 
life,  at  least  there  was  a  freshness,  a  fragrance,  a  childlike 
quality  in  his  philosophy  and  in  the  legends  which  his 
own  exuberant  fancy  had  interwoven  with  it,  and  which 
turned  it  all  into  poetry.  To  him  the  universe,  though 
diverse,  was  yet  harmonious  and  so  unitary.  He  had  no 
system  of  revealed  truth,  no  need  of  choosing  between  the 
acceptance  thereof  and  perdition,  no  conception  of  a  fall 
of  man,  and  hence  no  doubt  of  the  ability  of  reason  to 
penetrate  to  the  science  of  things.  His  science — his  logic, 
and  his  geometry — was  rational. 

Replacing  all  this,  now  came  the  belief  in  a  constant 
struggle  between  dual  powers,  existing  not  only  in  the 
external  world,  but  in  the  human  mind  ;  the  belief  that 
every  thought,  every  intelligent  effort  was  the  plaything 
of  divine  caprice  on  the  one  hand,  or  infernal  machination 
on  the  other.  Philosophy  became  an  alleged  imposture  of 
the  devil  ;  reason,  vitiated  and  untrustworthy.  There  was 
no  causality  to  be  sought  for,  no  field  for  scientific  investi- 
gation ;  for  what  could  be  fairly  determined  by  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  senses,  when  they,  as  well  as  the  reason- 
ing faculties,  were  liable  to  deception  or  distortion  to  suit 
the  occult  purposes  of  the  warring  powers  of  good  and 
evil?  Faith  became  so  far  independent  of  thought  that  it 
was  better  to  say  concerning  any  myth,  mystery  or  marvel, 
in  the  words  of  Tertullian,  "I  believe  because  it  is  im- 
probable, absurd,  impossible/' 

The  last  of  the  fathers  educated  in  philosophy  died  with 
St.  Augustine.  In  the  Dark  Ages  which  followed,  science 
disappeared,  and  magic  took  its  place.  The  most  intelli- 
gent minds  became  entangled  in  the  subtleties  of  spiritual 
relations  pervading  even  numbers  and  figures,  sought  oc- 
cult meanings  in  every  work  of  nature,  and  made  a  de- 
graded superstition  the  controlling  factor  in  life. 

Yet  here  again  the  inherent  mystery  of  the  magnet 
became  a  potent  agency  in  the  preservation  of  the  knowl- 
edge concerning  it.  Many  centuries  went  by  before  the 


96  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

commentators  supplemented  their  transcriptions  from 
Pliny  with  the  absurd  notions  which  finally  clustered 
thick  around  the  lodestone  and  the  amber.  In  fact,  it  was 
only  after  some  intellectual  force  had  been  gathered  in  the 
general  awakening,  that  men  acquired  sufficient  ingenuity 
to  propose  myths  which,  although  absolutely  un trammeled 
by  the  least  regard  for  the  truth,  seemed  at  all  capable  of 
deepening  a  mystery  which,  by  the  universal  consent  of 
past  generations,  had  already  reached  the  limit  of  profund- 
ity. To  these  delusions  I  shall  refer  hereafter.  I  have  now 
to  note  the  rise  and  spread  of  one  which,  in  the  end,  ad- 
vanced science  instead  of  impeding  it  ;  for  it  immensely 
magnified  the  powers  of  the  magnet  without  attempting  to 
ascribe  to  them  any  new  or  different  quality.  It  rested  on 
a  natural,  if  not  a  reasonable  inference,  and  this  perhaps 
accounts  both  for  its  early  conception  and  long  persistence; 
in  fact  there  are  few  fables  which  have  had  so  great  vital- 
ity or  have  been  so  widely  believed  as  that  of  the  Magnetic 
Mountains. 


In  that  marvelous  collection  of  romances,  the  Arabian 
Nights  Entertainments,  is  the  tale  of  the  third  royal  men- 
dicant,1 who  ventured  to  sea.  After  a  long  period  of  calm, 
the  captain  of  the  ship  tells  him,  in  great  perturbation,  that 
u  to-morrow  we  shall  arrive  at  a  mountain  of  black  stone 
called  lodestone  ;  the  current  is  now  bearing  us  violently 
towards  it,  and  the  ships  will  fall  in  pieces  and  every  nail  in 
them  will  fly  to  the  mountain  and  adhere  to  it ;  for  God 
hath  given  to  the  lodestone  a  secret  property,  by  virtue  of 
which  everything  of  iron  is  attracted  towards  it.  On  that 
mountain  is  such  a  quantity  of  iron  as  no  one  knoweth 
but  God,  whose  name  be  exalted  ;  for,  from  times  of  old, 
great  numbers  of  ships  have  been  destroyed  by  the  in- 
fluence of  that  mountain."  On  the  following  morning, 
as  the  ship  approached  the  fatal  stone,  "the  current  car- 

1  In  some  editions  called  Agib,  the  third  calendar. 


THE   MAGNETIC   MOUNTAINS.  97 

ried  us  toward  it  with  violence,  and  when  the  ships  were 
almost  close  to  it  they  fell  asunder,  and  all  the  nails  and 
everything  that  was  of  iron  flew  from  them  towards  the 
lodestone."1 

The  germ  of  that  story  lies  in  the  legend  of  the  shepherd 
Magnes,  the  iron  nails  in  whose  shoes  held  him  fast  to  the 
magnet  rock  on  Mount  Ida,  which,  as  I  have  said  in  a 
former  chapter,  Pliny  copied  from  Nicander's  now  lost 
poem.  When  Ptolemy  wrote  his  geography 2  in  the  2d 
century  of  our  era,  he  conceived  the  notion  of  enlarging 
the  rock  and  substituting  a  ship's  fastenings  for  the  shep- 
herd's shoe-pegs  ;  and,  in  order  to  give  to  it  verisimilitude, 
he  proceeded  to  locate  the  magnetic  mountains  in  the  sea 
between  Southern  China  and  the  coasts  of  Tonquin  and 
Cochin  China,  on  certain  islands  which  he  calls  Manioles. 
But,  as  Nicander's  shepherd  did  not  have  the  nails  of  his 
shoes  pulled  out  by  the  magnetic  attraction,  Ptolemy,  evi- 
dently from  scruples  against  venturing  outside  of  the  four 
corners  of  the  tradition,  is  careful  not  to  say  that  the  iron 
is  torn  from  the  vessels,  but  only  that  "  ships  which  have 
iron  nails  are  stopped,  and  that  is  why  they  are  put  to- 
gether with  wooden  nails,  in  order  that  the  Heraclean 
stone  which  grows  there  may  not  attract  them."  The 
story-teller  of  the  Arabian  Nights  is  equally  wise  as  to  the 
materials  wliich  the  lodestone  will  not  attract;  for  the 
dome  on  top  of  the  lodestone  mountain  is  of  brass,  and  so 
is  the  horseman  thereon  which  the  adventurous  calendar 
brings  down  with  a  leaden  arrow  from  a  brazen  bow,  and 
after  the  sea  magically  submerges  the  mountain  it  is  a  man 
of  brass  who  appears  in  a  boat  to  row  the  hero  away  from 
the  dangerous  spot. 

The  wanderings  of  the  magnetic  rocks  over  the  surface 

*Lane:  The  Thousand  and  One  Nights.  Lond.,  1859,  161.  This  col- 
lection was  first  made  known  in  Europe  about  the  end  of  the  I7th  cen- 
tury by  Galland,  from  a  manuscript  brought  from  Syria  dated  1584.  The 
stories  probably  date  from  about  the  middle  of  the  isth  century. 

2  Geography,  lib.  vii.,  c.  2. 
7 


98  THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  the  earth  now  begin.  In  a  treatise  attributed  to  St. 
Ambrose,1  a  Theban  story-teller  recounts  exactly  the  same 
facts,  but  says  the  mountains  are  on  the  thousand  islands  of 
the  Arabian  and  Persian  sea,  called  "Mammoles."  Yet, 
singularly  enough,  the  Chinese  author  So  Soung,2  writing 
between  1023  and  IQ63>  completely  corroborates  Ptolemy, 
and  says  that  uat  the  capes  and  at  the  points  of  Khanghai 
(the  southern  sea  on  the  coasts  of  Tonquin  and  Cochin 
China),  the  waters  are  low  and  there  are  many  magnet 
stones,  so  that  if  the  great  foreign  ships  which  are  covered 
with  iron  plates  approach  them,  they  are  arrested,  and 
none  of  them  can  pass  by  these  places."  So  Soung  quotes 
from  a  still  earlier  work,  appropriately  entitled  "memoirs 
on  the  extraordinary  things  seen  in  the  southern  countries." 

Even  more  curious  than  the  support  afforded  to  Ptolemy 
is  the  reference  to  great  foreign  ships  covered  with  iron 
plates:  which  raises  the  question  of  whether  the  Norse  iron- 
clad vessels  made  so  long  a  voyage  at  so  far  distant  a 
period.  The  Anglo-Saxons,  ordinarily,  before  going  into 
battle  hung  their  shields  along  the  gunwales  of  their  ships,3 
and  the  Icelanders  did  so  in  stormy  weather  or  in  time  of 
peril.*  Whether,  therefore,  any  Icelandic  vessel  managed 
to  get  as  far  as  China,  and  being  in  danger  from  the  reefs 
mentioned  by  So  Soung,  hung  out  her  shields,  is  a  matter 
of  curious  conjecture.  The  Icelanders  had  explored  the 
American  coast  many  years  before;  but  there  is  not  even  a 
legend  of  a  Viking  ship  ever  sailing  to  China. 

By  the  I2th  century  the  myth  of  the  magnetic  rocks 
had  reached  the  north  of  Europe.  In  one  of  the  earliest  of 
the  Dutch  poems,  which  lyongfellow  characterizes  as  "the 

1  De  Moribus  Brachmannorum.     Ed.  Bissaeus.     L/ond..  1665,  p.  59. 
2 Thou  King  Pen  Thsao.,  cit.  by  Klaproth  (cit.  sup.),  p.  117. 

3  "Then  from  the  wall,  the  Scylding  warder,  who  had  charge  of  the 
cliff,  beheld  them  carrying  over  the  gunwale  their  bright  shields,  their 
material  of  war  ready  for  use."    Beowulf  (Anglo-Saxon  Epic.)    Trans,  by 
T.  Arnold.     Loud.,  1876. 

4  Hakonar  Saga.     Vigfusson.     L,ond.,  1887,  106,  291. 


THE   MAGNETIC   MOUNTAINS.  99 

Divina  Commedia  of  the  Flemish  school,"  (The  Journey 
of  St.  Brandaen),1  the  saint  is  driven  by  a  storm  into  the 
L,everzee  (the  old  German  Lebermeer),  where  he  saw  a 
mast  rise  from  the  water  and  heard  a  mysterious  voice 
bidding  him  sail  to  the  eastward  to  avoid  the  magnetic 
rocks,  which  drew  to  them  all  that  passed  too  near.  Ogier, 
the  Dane,  is  wrecked  upon  Avalou  Island  by  the  attraction 
of  the  lodestone  mountain  or  castle  thereon.2  Although 
the  masts  crack  and  many  a  sail  is  stretched  by  the  brisk 
breeze,  the  vessels  of  the  Norse-German  fleet  are  held 
motionless  by  the  magnet  rock  at  Gyfers,  says  the  L,ay  of 
Gudrun.3  Magnus  Magnussen,  on  his  voyage  to  discover 
Greenland,  finds  his  ship  stopped  by  a  lodestone  at  the 
bottom  of  the  sea.  And  there  is  that  most  redoubtable 
of  travelers,  Sir  John  Maundevile,  Knight/  who  not  only 
depicts  the  perils  which  ships  searching  for  the  "Yle  of 
Prestre  John"  encounter  from  the  "grete  Roches  of  Stones 
of  the  Adamant  that  of  his  proper  nature  draweth  Iren  to 
him,"  but  gives  his  flamboyant  imagination  full  play  in 
describing  the  "Buscaylle  and  Thornes  and  Breres  and 
grene  Grasse  "  which  spring  up  from  the  fragments  of  the 
wrecked  vessels  and  clothe  the  rocks  as  with  a  u  grete 
Wode  or  Grove."  "And  therefore,"  he  concludes,  "dtir 
not  the  Marchauntes  passen  there,  but  zif  thei  knowen  wel 
the  passages  or  elle  that  thei  han  gode  Lodesmen." 

The  magnet  rocks  are  frequently  mentioned  by  the 
Arab  writers  of  the  I2th  and  I3th  centuries.  Cherif- 
Edrisi,  the  geographer,  speaks,  with  great  particularity, 
of  an  archipelago  in  the  Red  Sea,  near  the  straits  of 

1  Reis  van  Sinte  Brandaen :  Longfellow:  Poets  and  Poetry  of  Europe, 
Phila.,  1845,  372  '  Oudulaemsche  Gedichten  derxiie  xiiieenxiveEeuwen, 
n itgege ven  door  Jonkhr,  Ph.  Blommaert.     Ghent,  1838-41. 

2  Keary:  Outlines  of  Primitive  Belief.     New  York,  1882. 

3  Ludlow:  Epics  of  the  Middle  Ages.     London,  1865. 

4Halliwell:  The  Voiage  and  Travaile.  London,  1866.  See  also  Olaus 
Magnus:  Hist,  de  Gent.  Sept.,  1.  ii.,  cxxvi.  H.  Von  Valdeck:  Herzog 
Ernest  von  Bayern's  Erhotung,  1858.  ,  Spenser:  Faerie  Queene,  ii.,  canto 
12.  Also  Encyclo.  Metropol.,  XXI.  article,  Magnet. 


100         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Bab-el-Mandeb,  wherein  rises  a  mountain  called  "Mouru- 
kein,"  which  is,  however,  partly  submerged  by  the  tides: 
and  this,  he  says,  (as  usual  on  the  authority  of  some  one 
else,  one  Hhasan  ben  al-Mondar,)  seizes  and  holds  ships 
built  with  iron  nails.  He  adds,  however,  on  his  own 
authority,  that  there  is  still  another  magnetic  mountain, 
which  he  is  careful  to  locate  as  far  off  as  possible,  to-wit: 
in  a  gulf  near  Cape  Zanguebar,  which  is  very  high,  and 
over  the  sides  the  waters  fall  with  a  frightful  noise,  and  it 
is  named  Adjoud.1 

The  finishing  touch  to  the  romance  which  set  the  nails 
flying  from  the  ships,  was  given  by  one  Bailak,  a  native  of 
Kibdjak,2  who  wrote,  in  1242,  a  treatise  on  stones,  in  which 
he  quotes  from  a  pretended  work3  on  the  same  subject 
by  Aristotle,  which,  in  fact,  was  an  Arab  concoction.  His 
story  is  worth  quoting  in  full,  because  it  not  only  rounds 
out  the  fable  to  completion,  but  also,  as  is  very  likely  to 
happen  in  such  cases,  contains  the  explanation  which 
leads  to  it  own  destruction.  He  says: 

" According  to  Aristotle,  there  is  a  mountain  of  this 
stone  in  the  sea.  If  the  ships  approach  it,  they  lose  their 
nails  and  their  iron,  which  detach  themselves  from  the 
ships,  and  fly,  like  birds,  toward  the  mountain,  without 
being  retained  by  the  cohesive  force  of  the  wood.  Hence 
the  vessels  which  navigate  in  this  sea  are  not  fast- 
ened with  iron  nails,  but  cords  made  of  palm  fibres  are 
used  to  unite  them,  being  secured  by  soft  wooden  nails 
which  swell  in  the  water.  The  Yemen  people  also  fasten 
their  ships  with  strips  detached  from  the  branches  of  the 
palm  tree.  It  is  said  that  there  is  a  similar  mountain  in 
the  Indian  Sea." 

It  may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  when  the  Domin- 

1  Klaproth,  cit.  sup.,  119.  2Ibid,  57. 

5  As  is  well  known,  there  is  much  doubt  concerning  the  actual  works  of 
Aristotle.  Most  of  those  now  accepted  are  not  included  in  the  full  Aris- 
totelian catalogue  given  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  nor  were  they  known  to 
Cicero.  Grote:  Aristotle,  v.  i.,  c.  ii. 


THE  MAGNETIC  MOUNTAINS.  IOI 

ican  monk  Vincent  de  Beauvais1  repeated  the  story  in 
1250,  he  put  the  mountain  squarely  on  the  shores  of  the 
Indian  Sea,  and  gave  as  his  authority  a  Book  of  Stones 
written  by  Galen,  who  was  just  as  innocent  of  any  such 
production  as  Aristotle  was.  And  when  John  Taisnier,2 
arch-plagiarist,  in  turn  told  it  in  1562,  he  divided  the 
mountain  into  several  pieces,  and  put  it  in  the  "Aethiopian 
Sea;n  while  he  changed  the  Yemen  people  into  Canta- 
brians,  and,  regardless  of  the  baldness  of  the  fiction,  made 
them  construct  their  ships  of  wooden  blocks  fastened  to- 
gether by  glue. 

The  evolution  of  the  legend  is  characteristic  of  the  times. 
The  outcropping  magnetite  of  Phrygia  probably  attracted 
the  iron  tools  of  the  ancient  miners,  and  Nicander  trans- 
ferred its  drawing  power  to  the  shoes  of  Magnes.  Ptolemy 
made  the  rock  a  mountain,  set  it  on  the  seashore  and 
caused  it  to  arrest  ships;  St.  Ambrose  and  Soung  So  mul- 
tiply the  mountains,  the  Norsemen  and  the  Arabs  distri- 
bute them  widely  over  the  earth  and  cause  them  not 
merely  to  hold  the  ships  but  to  pull  out  the  iron  nails, 
and  thus  we  reach  the  story  of  the  Arabian  Nights.3 

But,  to  return  to  Bailak's  recital,  at  the  end  of  which  is 
revealed  the  probable  key  to  the  myth.  The  Arabs  had 
no  iron,  or  so  little  of  it  that  vessel  fastenings  of  that 
material  could  not  be  obtained.4  The  great  majority  of 
their  ships  were  mere  fishing  crafts,  intended  to  keep  in 

1  Constantinus,  in  Libro  Graduum. 

2  Taisuier :  De  Nat.  Magnet,  1562. 

8  Lane  (cit.  sup.),  says  that  the  Arab  author  El-Kazweenee  (in  Ajaib  el- 
Makhlookat)  in  his  account  of  minerals,  places  the  mine  of  lodestone  on 
the  shore  of  the  Indian  Sea,  and  reports  that  if  the  ships  which  navigate 
this  sea  approach  the  mine  or  contain  anything  of  iron  it  flies  from  them 
like  a  bird,  and  adheres  to  the  mountain  ;  for  which  reason  it  is  the 
general  custom  to  make  use  of  no  iron  in  the  construction  of  vessels  em- 
ployed in  this  navigation.  Note  72. 

4  Agatharcides  affirms  that  iron  in  ancient  Arabia  was  twice  the  value 
of  gold.  (De  Mari  Rubro,  60.) 


102         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

sight  of  shore.  They  were  built 1  of  wood  of  so  hard  a 
quality  that  it  was  liable  to  split  or  crack  like  earthenware, 
so  that  nails,  even  if  they  had  been  available,  could  not  be 
driven  into  it.  The  planks,  after  being  bored,  were 
fastened  to  the  stem  and  stern  posts  by  wooden  pins,  and 
were  then  bound  together  with  ropes  made  from  the 
fibrous  husk  of  the  cocoanut,  the  cocoa  fiber  or  coir  of  the 
present  time.  Marco  Polo,2  after  describing  these  boats, 
says  that  they  u  are  of  the  worst  kind  and  dangerous  for 
navigation,  exposing  the  merchants  and  others  who  make 
use  of  them  to  great  hazards."  Being  unfit  to  venture 
upon  the  open  sea,  these  vessels  were  of  necessity  kept  near 
land.  Hence  they  were  constantly  exposed  to  danger  from 
reefs  and  shoals,  and  especially  from  such  currents  as  the 
Arabian  Nights  story-teller  mentions,  w7hich  swept  them 
irresistibly  upon  the  rocks,  so  that  it  might  easily  seem 
that  the  ships  were  dragged  to  the  latter  by  some  myster- 
ious attractive  force.  A  few  tales  of  shipwreck  of  that  sort 
were  easily  elucidated  by  simply  picking  out  from  Pliny's 
Natural  History  (which  the  world  implicitly  relied  upon 
for  centuries)  a  convenient  explanation.  The  story  of 
Magnes  furnished  one  which  fitted  neatly  to  the  facts, 
and  the  tropical  imagination  of  the  Orient  needed  no  ac- 
cess of  fervor  to  add  the  flying  forth  of  the  nails  like  birds, 
and  the  breaking  of  the  ill-fated  ship  into  a  thousand 
pieces.3 


We  have  now  to  return  to  the  study  of  the  world's  pro- 
gress in  knowledge  of  magnetic  polarity.  We  have  exam- 
ined, briefly,  the  reasons  which  render  the  claim  of  origi- 
nation of  the  mariner's  compass  by  the  Chinese  as  one  to 

JThe  Three  Voyages  of  Vasco  da  Gama.  Hakluyt.  Soc.  London,  1869, 
240. 

2  Travels  of  Marco  Polo.     London,  1854,  20-21. 

'See  Thevet:  Cosmog.  Univ.,  p.  445.  Azuni :  Dissert,  sur  la  Boussole 
(cit.  sup.) 


EARLY   ARAB    NAVIGATION.  103 

be  regarded  with  much  doubt,  if  not  to  be  wholly  denied. 
Even,  however,  if  we  concede  the  credit  of  this  greatT 
achievement  to  the  Celestials,  there  still  remains  the 
problem  of  how  to  account  for  the  (necessarily  assumed) 
transmission  of  intelligence  concerning  the  compass  from 
them  to  the  western  nations.  The  limited  extent  of  their 
voyages,  due  to  their  ignorance  of  geography,  navigation 
and  seamanship,  militates  in  advance  against  any  hypoth- 
esis of  direct  communication  by  the  arrival  of  a  Chinese 
junk  in  a  western  port;  and,  in  fact,  that  supposition  is 
seldom  ventured.  Perhaps  the  most  favored  theory  is  that 
the  Arabs,  during  the  i2th  century,  brought  the  instrument 
from  China  to  the  Mediterranean.1  It  is  probably  true  that 
Arab  travelers  found  their  way  into  China  long  before  any 
Europeans  did  so;  and  it  is  said  that  the  knowledge  of  silk 
was  by  this  means  brought  to  the  western  world  during  the 
latter  period  of  the  Abbasides,  and  fully  five  hundred  years 
before  Marco  Polo's  famous  voyage.2  The  discovery  of 
ancient  Chinese  oil  bottles,  bearing  on  them  quotations 
from  the  Chinese  poets,  in  Egypt  and  Asia  Minor,  is 
considered  proof  of  commercial  connection  between  the 
Arabs  and  Chinese,  prior  to  the  middle  of  the  I3th  century.3 
And  the  known  fact  that  Arabian  vessels  did  constantly 
sail  from  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  Chinese  coast,  has  been 
deemed  in  itself  sufficiently  indicative  of  the  presence  of 
the  compass,  without  which  so  long  a  voyage,  it  is  argued, 
could  not  be  made. 

But  the  greater  strength  appears  to  lie  in  the  considera- 
tions which  support  the  opposite  conclusion.  I  have  already 
pointed  out  the  structural  weakness  of  the  Arabian  ships  and 
their  unsuitable  construction  for  ocean  navigation/  Con- 
sequently, their  long  voyages  to  China  were  always  along 

1  Klaproth,  (L' Invention  de  la  Boussole)  and  Humboldt,  (Cosmos)  both 
so  argue,  and  most  cyclopaedias  follow  them. 

2  Peschel :  Races  of  Man,  363. 

3 Williams:  The  Middle  Kingdom,  ii..  27. 
4Azuni :  Dissert,  sur  la  Boussole  (cit.  snp  ) 


104         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

the  coast  by  way  of  Cape  Malabar,  the  shore  never  being 
lost  sight  of  at  any  time.1  Trips  to  India,  however,  being 
shorter,  were  frequent,  and  these  were  made  even  by  the 
Egyptians  long  before  the  Christian  era.  After  studying 
the  periodic  direction  of  the  winds  and  the  monsoons,  one 
Egyptian  navigator,  Hippalus,  was  bold  enough  to  venture 
into  the  open  sea  and  to  trust  to  the  steady-blowing  west 
monsoon  to  waft  him  to  the  port  of  Musiris  on  the  Mala- 
bar coast.2  His  success  was  regarded  as  so  extraordinary 
that  the  wind  was  named  after  him,  and  thenceforward,  on 
Indian  voyages,  both  the  Egyptians  and  the  Arabs,  when 
they  did  leave  the  shore,  risked  the  venture  only  when 
they  could  rely  on  the  persistence  of  the  wind,  and  when 
it  was  fair  for  the  course  they  desired  to  sail.3 

It  is  true  that  the  Arabs  had  astrolabes  and  other  astro- 
nomical instruments,  which  their  pilots  used  for  finding 
their  positions  at  sea;  and  obscure  descriptions  of  these 
have  frequently  been  taken  as  referring  to  the  compass. 
The  Arabs, however,  never  were  inventors,  and  their  early 
knowledge  was  mainly  derived  from  Greek  books,  from 
which  they  could  have  learned  nothing  of  navigation, 
much  less  concerning  the  compass.  Azuni4  refers,  more- 
over, to  a  planisphere  stated  to  be  in  the  Treasury  of  St. 
Mark  in  Venice,  copied  from  one  brought  back  by  Polo,  on 
which  is  the  explicit  inscription  that  the  ships  traversing 
the  Indian  Ocean  u  navigate  without  the  compass,  for  an 
astrologer  is  stationed  aloft  and  apart  from  every  one  else, 
with  the  astrolabe  in  his  hand,"  and  thus  vessels  are 
piloted.  Nicholas  Visconti,5  who  made  the  Indian  tour  in 
the  middle  of  the  i5th  century,  asserts  positively  that  the 
Indian  navigators  u  never  navigate  with  the  compass,  but 

'Renaudot :  Anc.  Rel.  des  Indes  et  de  la  Chine.     Paris,  1718. 
'Robertson:  Hist.  Dis.  of  Anc.  Ind.,  \  2. 

'Arrian:  In  Periplo  Maris  Erythroei.  Vellanson  :  De  1'Inv.  de  la 
Boussole.  Naples,  1808. 

4  Azuni  :  Dissert,  stir  la,  Boussole,  cit.  sup. 

5Ramusio  :  Coll.  Voyages.     Venice,  1554,  vol.  i.,  379. 


EARLY   ARAB    NAVIGATION.  105 

guide  themselves  according  as  they  find  the  stars  high 
or  low,  and  this  they  execute  with  certain  measures." 
Whether  the  Arab  pilots  who  were  met  by  Vasco  da  Gama, 
in  1497,  after  his  famous  voyage  around  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope,  were  provided  with  compasses  is  a  disputed  ques- 
tion. One  of  da  Gama's  companions,1  after  stating  that 
the  largest  ships,  encountered  did  not  exceed  200  tons  bur- 
den and  were  of  very  weak  construction,  adds  that  "no 
one  ever  navigates  these  seas  with  the  compass,  but  with 
certain  quadrants  of  wood,  which  appears  to  be  very  diffi- 
cult, principally  when  the  weather  is  foggy  and  the  stars 
cannot  be  seen."  Contrariwise  it  is  asserted  that  the 
Arabs,  at  the  time  of  da  Gama,  were  instructed  in  so  many 
of  the  arts  of  navigation  that  they  did  not  yield  much  to 
the  Portugese  mariners  in  the  science  and  practice  of  mari- 
time matters.2 

It  is  obvious  that  even  up  to  the  end  of  the  i5tli  century 
a  decided  doubt  exists  as  to  the  use  of  the  compass  by  any 
Arab  or  Indian  navigators.  Nor  can  anything  be  inferred 
in  their  favor,  even  if  it  be  conceded  that  the  Chinese  ves- 
sels were  employing  it  on  the  Indian  Ocean.  The  Chinese 
are  not  a  communicative  people,  and,  whether  as  a  marine 
or  a  land  device,  the  magnetic  needle  has  always  been  re- 
garded by  them  as  animated  by  a  spirit.  This  is  the 
guardian  deity  of  the  ship,  and  hence,  from  the  beginning, 
the  compass  has  been  shut  up  in  a  little  cabinet  in  the 
stern  of  the  vessel,  with  other  sanctified  utensils,  and  jeal- 
ously guarded  from  strangers.  The  instrument,  moreover, 
is  adjusted  for  the  course  before  the  ship  leaves  port  by  the 
ship's  owner,  and  the  navigator  is  therefore  especially 
solicitous  that  it  should  not  be  disturbed  en  voyage?  Add 
to  all  this  the  fact  that  a  magnetic  needle  cannot  be  recog- 

1  Ibid,  vol.  i.,  c.  3.     Barrow  :  A  Voyage  to  Cochin  China.     I/ond.,  1806, 
355.     Renaudot :  Dissert,  sur  les  Sciences  des  Chinois,  288-289. 

2  Hakluyt  Soc.     Three  Voyages  of  Vasco  da  Gama,  1869.     Vartheina  : 
Travels,  31. 

3  Barrow,  cit.  sup. 


106         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISK   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tiized  as  magnetic  by  looking  at  it,  and,  unless  the  copy- 
ing Arab  possessed,  not  merely  the  knowledge  of  magnetic 
attraction,  which  he  might  have  had,  but  also  that  of 
magnetic  polarity,  which  he  certainly  did  not  have,  it 
would  be  impossible  for  him  to  reproduce  the  apparatus. 

Besides,  the  Chinese  mariner  was  grossly  ignorant,  and 
even  if  he  could  explain  the  mysterious  little  needle,  it  is 
unlikely  that  the  haughty  Arab,  of  a  totally  different  race 
and  religious  belief,  would  view  other  than  with  contempt, 
the  signs  and  astrological  hieroglyphics,  which  were  part 
of  the  Chinaman's  religion,  and  to  which  he  would  be 
sure  to  attribute  much  of  the  marvelous  powers  of  the 
compass.  The  Arabs  had  possessed  charts  and  astrolabes 
for  a  long  time,  and  had  proved  them  to  be  efficient  guides 
at  sea,  so  that  it  is  improbable  that  they  would  readily 
supplant  them  by  any  such  incomprehensible  Chinese 
contrivance.  Nor  indeed  is  it  necessary,  because  the 
Arabs  made  long  voyages,  or  because  early  mariners  of 
the  Indian  Ocean  undertook  journeys  on  which  the  modern 
navigator  would  never  venture  without  the  aid  of  a  com- 
pass, to  assume  that  such  an  instrument  existed  among 
them.  A  fairly  good  means  of  guidance  at  sea,  known 
since  the  days  of  the  Phoenicians,  was  the  flight  of  birds. 
Those  birds  which  accomplish  the  longest  flights,  and 
cross  the  widest  oceans,  always  select,  by  some  marvelous 
instinct,  the  shortest  ocean  routes;  and  birds  which  know 
their  way  are  an  invaluable  guide  to  the  sailor  who  has 
lost  his.  There  is,  for  example,  a  kind  of  falcon  which 
breeds  in  Southern  Siberia,  Mongolia,  and  Northern 
China,  and  winters  in  India  and  Eastern  Africa.1  It  is 
able  to  make  this  long  migration  by  moving  from  station 
to  station  in  the  Indian  Ocean,  so  that  it  is  plausibly 
supposed  that  guided  by  these  birds,  the  ancient  ships 
might  have  made  voyages  from  the  coast  of  Malabar  even 
to  the  far  distant  Archipelago  of  Madagascar. 

1  Dixon  :  Migration  of  Birds.  London,  1892.  Simcox  :  Prim.  Civiliza- 
tion, cit.  sup. 


THE   ARABS   AND   THE   COMPASS.  107 

If,  therefore,  the  eastern  Arabs  neither  invented  the 
mariner's  compass  themselves  nor  derived  it  from  the 
Chinese,  the  many  claims  based  upon  its  supposed  origin 
among  them  must  be  laid  aside.  Indeed,  it  is  seldom 
that  recent  writers  attempt  to  establish  directly  the  first 
appearance  of  the  instrument  among  these  people,  the 
usual  contention  being  that  the  knowledge  of  it  came  with 
the  Saracen  armies  which  conquered  Egypt,  the  north 
African  coast,  and  finally  Spain  ;  and  that  it  was  during 
the  period  of  advanced  civilization  which  that  country 
reached  during  the  Arab-Moor  domination  that  the  com- 
pass found  its  way  into  general  use  on  the  Arab  fleets  in 
the  Mediterranean. 

It  is  certainly  not  an  unreasonable  supposition  that  the 
people  whose  attainments  and  culture  shine  out  with  the 
highest  lustre  against  the  black  background  of  the  dense 
and  all-pervading  ignorance  prevailing  throughout  Europe 
during  the  dark  ages,  and  to  whom  the  rejuvenation  of 
physical  science  was  chiefly  due,  should  have  been,  of  all 
others,  the  one  to  bring  forth  an  invention  of  such  trans- 
cendent importance ;  but  even  the  strongest  advocates  of 
the  Spanish  Saracens  do  not  pretend  that  the  compass  was 
discovered  on  Spanish  soil,  but  allege  only  in  a  general 
way  that  "  the  Arabians,  finding  it  in  their  eastern  con- 
quests among  the  treasures  of  natural  magic,  brought  it 
into  Spain  certainly  as  early  as  the  eleventh  century,  and 
used  it  very  generally  there  in  the  twelfth." 

But  if  the  Arabs  of  the  East,  as  we  have  seen,  did 
not  have  the  instrument,  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  remark 
that  the  Arabs  of  the  West  could  not  have  obtained  it 
from  them ;  and,  therefore,  the  problem  is  not  to  be 
solved  by  such  an  hypothesis.  Certain  eminent  Italian 
historians  (patriotically  unwilling  to  relinquish  the  credit 
accorded  to  Italy  for  many  years  during  which  the  claims 
of  Flavio  de  Gioja  of  Amalfi  were  favorably  regarded), 
while  conceding  the  invention  to  the  Saracens,  deny  it 
to  the  Saracens  of  Spain  and  ascribe  it  to  the  Saracens 


IO8         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

of  Apulia.  That  the  compass  did  probably  come  to 
Apulia  at  an  early  date  in  its  history,  and  that  there  is 
consequently  a  certain  support  to  this  opinion,  we  shall 
see  further  on;  but  there  is  a  total  lack  of  record  evidence 
that  the  Saracens,  who  dwelt  chiefly  in  L,ucera  or  Nocera, 
a  city  of  refuge  in  the  Italian  province,  had  any  part  in  its 
introduction. 

Our  present  inquiry,  however,  is  to  determine  what,  if 
anything,  the  Spanish  Moors  contributed  to  the  science, 
the  development  of  which  we  are  studying;  and  to  this  I 
now  address  myself. 

By  the  middle  of  the  eighth  century,  the  Arabs  through- 
out their  whole  empire,  from  Syria  to  the  Atlantic,  had 
begun  to  turn  from  the  study  of  the  Koran  to  that  of 
science  and  profane  literature.  They  went  to  the  Greeks 
for  their  philosophy,  and  translated  into  Arabic  the  works 
of  Aristotle  and  Plato,  Euclid,  Apollonius,  Ptolemy, 
Hippocrates  and  Galen,  undefiled  by  the  distortions  of 
the  Christian  revisers,  and  untrammeled  by  the  theological 
dicta  of  any  religious  system.  The  syllogism  of  the 
Stagirite  commended  itself  to  the  subtle  Saracen  intellect, 
and  the  disputations  of  the  shady  walks  of  Athens,  long 
since  silenced,  became  again  heard  in  the  schools  which 
flanked  the  mosques  from  one  end  of  the  Mediterranean  to 
the  other. 

In  Spain  the  awakening  was  even  more  thorough,  and 
the  progress  more  swift;  for  the  men  of  action  outstripped 
the  men  of  thought.  Cordova  produced  her  unrivaled 
leather,  and  pointed  to  a  paved  street  ten  miles  long  and 
brilliantly  lighted  at  night.  Toledo  brought  forth  her 
sword-blades,  which  still  laugh  the  modern  armorers'  art 
to  scorn.  The  Arabic  numeral,  arithmetic,  algebra  and 
chemistry  came  into  the  world.  Rice  and  sugar  and 
cotton  and  spinach  and  saffron  and  nearly  every  fine 
garden  and  orchard  fruit  followed  the  conquerors  from  the 
east.  The  vineyards  of  Xeres  and  Malaga  then  first 
yielded  their  famous  wines.  Art  took  on  new  and  fas- 


THE   ARABS   AND   THE  COMPASS.  109 

dilating  forms,  and  such  dreams  of  beauty  as  had  never 
before  been  known  appeared  amid  the  groves  and  gardens 
of  Granada. 

If  the  Spanish  Moors  built  any  great  ships  or  made  any 
long  voyages  on  blue  water,  all  have  escaped  record  as 
completely  as  has  the  memory  of  the  mariner's  compass, 
with  which  their  advocates  say  their  apocryphal  vessels  of 
the  tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  were  provided. 

We  shall  look  in  vain  through  the  encyclopaedic  astro- 
nomical work  of  Ibn  Younis — the  great  Hakemite  Tables 
(1007  A.  D.) — for  any  reference  to  this  instrument,  ines- 
timable as  is  its  importance  in  observations  of  the  heavens. 
Equally  in  vain  will  the  works  of  Cherif  Edrisi  (1153  A. 
D.) — the  most  famous  of  all  Arabian  geographers — be 
searched  for  it ;  nor  has  the  grammatical  and  historical 
lexicon  of  the  Byzantine  Greek,  Suidas,  full  as  it  is  in  its 
reference  to  the  magnet,  a  word  which  reveals  the  slight- 
est knowledge  of  the  directing  needle. 

If  the  Saracens  had  constructed  large  vessels  and  had 
made  extensive  voyages  in  them  upon  the  open  sea,  it  is 
reasonably  certain  that  some  clear  and  indisputable  records 
thereof  would  long  since  have  come  to  light.  But  the 
only  craft  of  unusual  magnitude  which  they  built  were 
flatboats  for  the  transportation  of  troops  or  goods  over 
short  distances,  while  their  ships  were  of  inconsiderable 
dimensions.  Out  of  eighteen  hundred,  which  they  sent 
against  Constantinople,  only  twenty  were  large  enough  to 
carry  one  hundred  men  each,  and  all  of  them  were  de- 
stroyed by  the  Greek  fire  showered  upon  them  by  the 
besieged,  in  a  single  night.  On  a  succeeding  venture 
most  of  the  seven  hundred  and  sixty  ships  composing  the 
attacking  fleet  met  a  like  fate. 

Thus  it  appears  that  the  compass  had  no  early  existence 
among  the  Arabs  of  the  Persian  Gulf  and  Indian  Ocean, 
nor  among  the  highly  civilized  Saracens  of  Spain.  There 
still  remain  the  Arabs  who  traded  in  the  Eastern  part  of 
the  Mediterranean;  but  here  our  quest  is  short,  for  in  the 


110         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

work  of  Bailak  of  Kibdjak  already  noted,  and  written  in 
1242,  the  first  of  all  Arabian  descriptions  of  the  compass  is 
found. 

"The  captains  who  navigate  the  Syrian  Sea,"  he  says, 
4 'when  the  night  is  so  obscure  that  they  cannot  perceive 
any  star  to  direct  them  according  to  the  determination  of 
the  four  cardinal  points,  take  a  vessel  full  of  water  which 
they  place  sheltered  from  the  wind  and  within  the  ship. 
Then  they  take  a  needle,  which  they  enclose  in  a  piece 
of  wood  or  reed  formed  in  the  shape  of  a  cross.  They 
throw  it  in  the  water  contained  in  the  vase,  so  that  it 
floats.  Then  they  take  a  magnet  stone  large  enough  to 
fill  the  palm  of  the  hand,  or  smaller.  They  bring  it  to  the 
surface  of  the  water,  and  give  to  the  hand  a  movement  of 
rotation  toward  the  right,  so  that  the  needle  turns  on  the 
surface  of  the  water.  Then  they  withdraw  the  hand  sud- 
denly, and  at  once  the  needle,  by  its  two  points,  faces  to 
the  south  and  to  the  north.  I  have  seen  them,  with  my 
own  eyes,  do  that,  during  my  voyage  at  sea  from  Tripolis 
to  Alexandria  in  the  year  640  (or  1240  A.  D.).1 

Bailak's  assertion  that  the  compass  was  in  use  at  this 
date  is  of  course,  in  itself,  enough  to  dispose  of  the  oft  re- 
peated statement  that  the  first  tidings  of  it  were  brought 
to  Europe  by  Marco  Polo,  for  that  traveler  did  not  return 
from  Cathay  until  1295.  But  the  theory  of  its  invention 
by  the  Eastern  Arabs  must  also  fall;  for,  at  the  time  that 
Bailak  wrote,  the  Northmen  had  been  steering  their  ships 
by  the  magnet  needle  for  more  than  half  a  century,  and 
the  compass  was  well  known  to  the  sailors  of  England, 
France  and  Italy. 

That  the  manners  of  Christian  Spain  had  like  know- 
ledge may  perhaps  be  inferred  ;  but  the  earliest  Spanish 
record  of  the  compass  which  has  been  found  is  in  the 
famous  compilation  of  laws  known  as  L,as  Siete  Partidas,2 

1  Klaproth  :  57.     From  Arab  MSS.,  No.  970,  Bib.  Nat.     Paris. 

2  Las  Siete  Partidas  del  Key  Don  Alfonso  El  Sabio.     Madrid,   1807. 
Part  IT.,  Title  IX.,  Law  28. 


THE  COMPASS   IN   MEDIEVAL  SPAIN.  Ill 

made  by  order  of  Alfonso  X.-,  King  of  Castile,  in  1263  ;  the 
28th  statute  of  which  is  the  following  : 

"And  as  the  sailors  are  guided  in  an  obscure  night  by 
means  of  the  magnet  needle,  which  is  their  mediator  be- 
tween the  star  and  the  lodestone,  and  shows  them  where 
to  go  as  well  in  good  weather  as  in  bad  ;  so  those  who 
have  to  aid  and  to  counsel  the  king  should  always  be 
guided  by  justice,  which  is  the  mediator  between  God  and 
the  world,  always  giving  safety  to  the  good  and  punish- 
ment to  the  wicked,  each  according  to  his  deserts." 

It  appears,  however,  that  the  instrument  was  not  then 
in  use  in  Spanish  ships.  In  the  chronicle  of  Don  Pedro 
Nino,  Conde  de  Buelna,  a  famous  Castilian  knight,  appears 
the  decisive  statement  under  date  of  1403:  "The  galleys 
of  Conde,  it  is  said,  left  the  island  of  la  Alharina  in  Bar- 
bary.  .  .  The  pilots  compared  their  needles  rubbed  with 
the  magnet  stone  and  opened  their  charts."  This  the 
distinguished  Spanish  historian  Capmany1  says  is  not  only 
the  first  mention  of  the  use  of  the  compass  in  a  Spanish 
vessel,  but  he  finds  that  in  the  inventories  of  a  three- 
decked  ship  fitted  out  in  Barcelona  in  1331  against  the 
Genoese,  there  is  no  reference  to  such  an  instrument ;  nor 
yet  in  the  similar  schedules  of  1364  of  the  galleys  of  Don 
Pedro  IV.,  of  Aragon,  although  all  articles,  even  those  of 
very  small  'account,  are  noted.  On  the  other  hand,  he 
points  out  that  in  the  galley  inventories  of  Alfonso  V.,  of 
Aragon,  dated  1409,  the  compass  is  fully  set  forth. 

1  Capmany  :  Memorias  Historicas  Sobre  la  Marina,  Commercio,  etc. 
Madrid,  1792. 


CHAPTER  V. 

BEING  a  sea-wolf,  and  living  among  sea-wolves,  the 
mediaeval  Northman  was  controlled  by  wolf  law,  which 
compelled  him  to  keep  his  powers,  offensive  and  defensive, 
in  the  best  possible  order,  lest  he  should  be  eaten.  For, 
when  there  was  no  quarry  at  hand  for  the  common  pack, 
its  members  fell  one  upon  another  and  the  Danes  harried 
the  Saxons,  and  the  Swedes  worried  the  Finns,  and  the 
Norwegians  came  upon  any  and  all  of  them  ;  and  conse- 
quently, as  this  fighting  was  done  chiefly  at  sea,  that  nation 
which  had  the  strongest  navy  for  the  time  being,  at  least, 
was  paramount.  Therefore,  to  the  building  and  mainte- 
nance of  ships  everything  else  was  subordinate,  and  even 
the  lands  were  divided  so  as  to  secure  the  largest  possible 
contribution  of  vessels,  or  the  greatest  tax  levy  for  their 
support.  In  the  beginning,  the  galleys  were  small,  and  the 
seven  hundred  of  them  which  made  up  the  fleet  of  Hakon 
and  Harald  Bluetooth  were  little  more  than  canoes  ;  but 
they  grew  apace  in  size  until  in  the  nth  century,  the  Long 
Serpent  of  King  Olaf  Tryggvason  went  into  action  against 
the  ships  of  Norway,  Denmark  and  Sweden,  with  thirty- 
four  banks  of  rowers  beating  the  water  into  foam  at  her 
sides.  And,  in  that  same  battle  of  the  Svold,  Eirik,  Jarl  of 
Norway  had  a  vessel  with  beaks  on  both  stem  and  stern, 
and  covered  at  her  bow  with  great  iron  plates  which 
reached  to  the  water. 

As  larger  ships  were  built,  the  wonderful  energy  of  the 
Northmen  found  a  new  outlet  in  overcoming  the  dangers 
and  hardships  of  long  voyages,  even  unto  regions  wherein 
seamen  had  never  before  penetrated;  and  their  trading  craft 
went  not  merely  into  the  Mediterranean,  but  to  Greenland 
and  along  the  American  coast.  The  northern  Sagas  may, 

(112) 


THE  VOYAGES  OF  THE  NORTHMEN.        113 

however,  be  searched  in  vain  for  any  allusion  which  cai 
be  interpreted  as  referring  to  the  compass.  In  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  century,  Harald  Fairhair,  of  Norway,  drove 
many  of  the  chieftains  from  the  country,  and  the  record  of 
their  voyages  in  search  of  new  lands  then  begins.  Naddod 
Viking  discovered  Iceland  in  861,  and  was  followed  by 
Floki,  the  son  of  Vilgerd,  a  noted  pirate,  in  865.  Floki 
sailed  from  Roga  land  in  Norway,  and  on  reaching  Smor- 
stind  offered  a  great  sacrifice  and  consecrated  the  three 
crows  by  means  of  which  he  meant  to  find  the  way — for, 
says  the  Saga,  "the  magnet  was  not  then  in  use  for  the 
northern  sailors."  When  he  thought  he  was  near  to  the 
land,  he  freed  the  first  crow,  which  returned  to  the  port 
from  which  he  had  sailed;  the  second  crow  flew  about  aim- 
lessly until  tired,  and  then  came  back  to  the  vessel;  but 
the  third  crow  went  onward,  and  after  the  manner  of  its 
kind,  in  a  straight  line,  and  so  laying  his  course,  Floki 
found  the  eastern  coast  of  the  island.1 

Following  the  discovery  of  Iceland  came  that  of  Green- 
land, by  Thorvald  and  his  son  Eirik  the  Red,  who  made 
the  first  voyage2  in  985,  and  followed  the  coast.  L^t^r 

lL,andnamabok:  i.,  c.  2,  \  7.  Wheaton:  History  of  Northmen,  London, 
1831.  Mallet:  Northern  Antiquities,  188. 

This  use  of  crows  or  ravens  for  finding  the  way  at  sea  is  believed  to 
have  been  common  among  the  Northmen,  and  there  may  have  been  a 
particular  variety  of  these  birds  trained  for  the  purpose  and  consecrated 
thereto  by  religious  rites  which  fell  into  disuse  on  the  introduction  of 
Christianity;  a  probability  strengthened  by  the  fact  that  the  raven  was 
the  bird  of  Odin,  the  raven  god,  Hrafnagud,  as  he  is  called  in  the  Scald 
poetry. 

The  Icelandic  saga  was  written  in  the  nth  century,  and  hence  its  di- 
rect reference  to  the  non-use  of  the  magnet  at  an  earlier  period  has  been 
cited  to  establish  undoubted  knowledge  of  the  compass  at  the  date  of  the 
work.  The  latter,  however,  was  left  uncompleted  by  its  original  author, 
and  it  was  glossed  by  many  writers  up  to  the  time  of  Hauk,  the  son  of 
Enland,  who  entirely  re-made  it  in  the  I4th  century — so  that  the  refer- 
ence belongs  to  that  date  and  not  to  a  period  three  centuries  earlier. 
See  Klaproth,  L,'  Invention  de  la  Boussole,  cit.  sup. 

2Flateyjarb6k,  i.,  429;  Du  Chaillu :  Viking  Age,  cit.  sup.,  18. 
8 


114         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

still  was  the  first  journey  of  Bjarni  to  America,1  and  as  to 
this  the  Saga  says  that  ''after  three  days'  sailing,  land 
was  out  of  sight  and  the  fair  winds  ceased  and  northern 
winds  with  fog  blew  continually,  so  that,  for  many  days, 
they  did  not  know  in  what  direction  they  were  sailing" — 
a  statement  which  completely  negatives  the  presence  of 
the  compass,  even  without  the  aid  of  the  ensuing  descrip- 
tion of  how  the  ships  afterwards  sailed  in  sight  of  the 
shore. 

We  have  now  to  turn  to  the  Anglo-Saxons.  A  century 
and  a  half  after  the  pirate  ships  of  Hengist  had  appeared 
off  Thanet,  the  "strangers  from  Rome,"  sent  by  Gregory 
the  Great,  marched  into  Canterbury  with  censers  burning, 
the  silver  cross  borne  aloft,  and  chanting  the  solemn  litany 
of  the  Church:  so  returned  into  England  the  Latin  tongue, 
and  with  it  Christianity.  In  the  reign  of  Aelfred  came 
peace,  long  enough  for  the  establishment  of  order  and  the 
beginning  of  the  teaching  of  the  people.  Of  all  the  great 
things  which  Aelfred  did,  the  most  significant  with  respect 
to  our  present  research,  are  the  opening  of  channels  of 
thought  and  commerce  between  England  and  the  people 
of  the  north  countries,  and  the  great  impetus  which  his 
larger  and  better  ships  must  have  given  to  the  making  of 
long  voyages.2  Thus  a  more  extended  knowledge  of  the 
art  of  navigation  and  of  matters  pertaining  thereto  was 
gained,  better  conditions  of  intercommunication  were  es- 
tablished, and  the  spread  of  intelligence  among  the  sea- 
faring nations  greatly  quickened.  Meanwhile,  and  long 
before  the  reign  of  Aelfred,  the  magnet  was  well  known 
in  Britain.  The  Greek  and  Roman  writings  with  which 
the  clergy  were  familiar — and  those  of  Pliny  especially — 
contained,  as  we  have  seen,  abundant  references  to  it; 
and,  as  iron  had  been  freely  mined  before  the  Roman  occu- 

1Flateyjarb6k.,  i.,  430. 

2  The  Saxon  Chronicle  and  William  of  Malmesbury,  248.  Wright,  T. 
A.:  Essay  on  the  State  of  Literature,  etc.,  under  the  Anglo-Saxons. 
London,  1839,  92. 


SCIENTIFIC  WRITINGS   OF  THE  ANGLO-SAXONS.      115 

pation,  the  lodestone  which  Harrison,1  in  1577,  speaks  of 
as  ''oftentimes  taken  up  out  of  our  mines  of  iron/'  was 
present  in  abundance  in  the  country.  The  first  Anglo- 
Latin  epigrammist,  St.  Aldhelm,2  writing  in  the  latter  half 
of  the  seventh  century,  devotes  a  stanza  to  it,  mainly  with 
relation  to  the  supposed  power  of  the  diamond  to  cut  off  its 
attraction;  and  the  Venerable  Bede  indirectly  alludes  to  it 
in  his  mention  of  Bellerophon's  horse  suspended  in  the 
air  at  Rhodes. 

The  writings  of  St.  Isidore  and  Bede  were  the  chief 
text-books  of  science  of  the  Anglo-Saxons  up  to  the 
twelfth  century.  Their  dicta  were  accepted  as  articles  of 
faith  to  be  learned,  and  not  questioned.  Compilations  and 
re-compilations  were  made  from  them,  often  intermingled 
with  spurious  treatises,  and  the  whole  buried  under  great 
masses  of  commentaries,  so  that,  to  determine  therefrom 
the  state  of  knowledge  existing  at  any  particular  period  is 
at  best  a  doubtful  undertaking.  The  Anglo-Saxon  work 
in  which  we  might  expect  to  find  the  compass  described, 
if  it  were  known,  is  the  Manual  of  Astronomy  abridged  by 
Alfric  from  Bede's  De  Natura  Rerum,  in  the  loth  century; 
but  it  contains  no  reference  to  the  instrument,  and,  on  the 
contrary,  alludes  to  the  northern  or  "ship  star,"  and  its 
fixedness  in  the  heavens.3 

With  the  monastic  reforms  of  Dunstan  and  Athelwold 
some  slight  revival  of  scientific  investigation  becomes 
apparent.  But  it  was  of  weakling  growth,  and  when  it 
was  found  linked  with  like  progress  in  Saracen  Spain,  the 
great  body  of  the  monks  looked  upon  it  with  suspicion  as 
savoring  of  witchcraft  and  heresy.  Despite  the  fame 
which  Dunstan  gained  by  his  supposed  victory  in  a  per- 

1  Harrison,  W. :     A  Description  of  England.     Lond.,  1577.    Book  in., 
c.  12. 

2  Aldhelm:   Lib  de  Septenario  et  de   Metris.     Ep.  viii.     De  Magnete 
Ferrifero. 

3  Wright,  T.:  Popular  Treatises  on  Science  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
London,  1841. 


Il6         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

sonal  contest  with  the  Devil,  his  neighbors  threw  him  into 
a  pond  to  determine  whether  he  was,  in  fact,  a  wizard  or 
not;  and  when  Ailmer  of  Malmesbury,  having  invested 
himself  with  a  pair  of  wings,  jumped  from  a  steeple  and 
broke  his  legs,  they  ascribed  his  failure  to  evil  influences 
with  which  he  had  paltered,  and  not,  as  he  insisted,  to  his 
having  forgotten  to  put  on  a  tail  behind.1 

In  none  of  the  chronicles  of  Saxon  England,  nor  in  the 
old  legendary  poems  of  the  north,  can  any  definite  sign 
of  acquaintance  with  magnetic  polarity  be  recognized. 
While  the  Normans  undertook  long  excursions,  the  ordi- 
nary voyage  made  by  them  was  merely  between  points  on 
the  narrow  seas  where  the  pilots  were  seldom  out  of  sight 
of  land,  and  in  waters  which  had  been  navigated  for  cen- 
turies and  wherein  all  the  peculiarities  of  coasts  and  cur- 
rents were  intimately  known.  During  the  loth  and  nth 
centuries,  however,  the  forays  of  the  Normans,  originally 
confined  to  the  lands  bordering  on  the  sea,  were  extended 
into  the  heart  of  Europe.  They  ruined  France,  placed 
her  monarchs  under  tribute,  and  occupied  and  named  one 
of  the  fairest  portions  of  the  Prankish  territory.  There, 
having  embraced  Christianity,  they  began  pilgrimages  to 
Italy  and  the  Holy  Land,  with  all  the  fervor  of  new-made 
converts.  Their  acceptance  of  the  new  faith  does  not 
seem  to  have  extended  as  far  as  the  doctrine  of  loving  one's 
neighbors;  and  any  behavior  on  the  part  of  the  latter  to- 
ward the  pious  pilgrim  on  the  basis  of  such  a  presumption 
speedily  converted  the  meek  wayfarer  into  an  astonishingly 
skilful  manipulator  of  axe  and  sword.  Their  pilgrimages, 
therefore,  were  not  easily  distinguishable  from  invasions, 
and  aroused  resentment,  and  finally  wars,  especially  with 
the  Greeks  and  Saracens  of  Southern  Italy,  one  result  of 
which  was  the  conquest  of  Apulia,  and  the  transfer  to 
Norman  control  of  the  flourishing  and  opulent  Amalfi,  a 

1  Wright,  T.:  An  Essay  on  the  State  of  Literature,  etc.,  under  the 
Anglo-Saxons.     London,  1839.     64-69. 
William  of  Malmesbury  (Scriptores  Post  Bedam),  92. 


WILLIAM   APPULUS.  117 

city  which,  for  the  preceding  three  hundred  years,  had 
been  one  of  the  great  maritime  trading  marts  of  the  world. 

It  is  in  an  original  account  of  Norman  prowess  in  this 
part  of  Europe,  written  by  William  Appulus,1  a  native  of 
France,  in  noo,  that  a  possible  trace  of  the  compass  ap- 
pears ;  and  this  only  in  a  single  line  of  a  poem  which,  in 
describing  Amalfi  and  its  glories,  mentions  the  many 
mariners  tarrying  in  the  city  as  u  skilled  in  opening  the 
ways  of  the  seas  and  the  heavens. "  Gibbon2  regards  these 
words  as  relating  to  the  compass ;  but,  inasmuch  as  the 
eminent  historian  himself  dwells  upon  the  extension  of 
the  Amalfitan  trade  to  the  African,  Arabian  and  Indian 
coasts,  they  seem  more  applicable  to  the  general  nautical 
skill  which  could  conduct  ships  to  such  distant  places, 
rather  than  to  any  specific  aid  in  so  doing  which  the  com- 
pass might  afford. 

At  all  events,  if  the  silence  of  all  written  records  from 
the  reign  of  Aelfred  to  the  beginning  of  the  i2th  century 
is  to  be  regarded  as  disproving  the  prior  or  contemporary 
use  of  the  instrument,  the  continuance  of  that  same  silence 
after  the  time  of  William  Appulus  and  in  the  face  of  the 
great  commerce  of  Amalfi,  is  even  more  significant  as 
showing  its  absence. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  not  safe  to  accept  these  premi- 
ses as  controlling,  in  view  of  the  existing  state  of  Euro- 
pean civilization.  Hallam  tells  us  that  from  the  middle 
of  the  6th  century  a  condition  of  general  ignorance  lasted 
for  a  period  of  about  five  centuries;  and  that  not  until  the 
close  of  the  nth  century  began  vigorous  attempts  to  re- 
trieve what  had  been  lost  of  ancient  learning,  or  to  supply 
its  place  by  the  original  powers  of  the  mind.3  Then,  un- 
fortunately, the  newly-developed  energy  was  turned  into  a 
path  almost  diametrically  opposite  to  that  which  led  to  the 

1  William  Appulus  (apud  Muratori,  v.)  lib,  iii.,  267. 

2  Gibbon  :  The  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  c.  Ivi. 

3  Hallam :  Literature  of  Europe,  Part  I ,  c.  i.,  \  10. 


Il8         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

cultivation  of  physical  science.  If  ignorance  had  left  that 
road  choked  and  impassable  with  weeds,  the  scholastic 
philosophy,  of  which  John  Scot  Krigena  began  the  asser- 
tion in  Aelfred's  reign,  conducted  inquiring  minds  alto- 
gether away  from  it.  In  the  early  days  of  Christendom 
the  heathen  philosophy  was  regarded  as  different  from  the 
philosophy  of  the  new  dispensation,  and,  therefore,  it  was 
silenced.  Now,  it  was  maintained  that  the  heathen  phil- 
osophy was  identical  with  that  deduced  from  divine  reve- 
lation, and  consequently  that  theology  was  inherently  and 
essentially  philosophical  truth.  Wherefore  Abelard  in- 
sisted that  logic  includes  the  whole  of  science,  which  is 
the  same  thing  as  saying  that  the  key  to  all  knowledge 
lies  in  combining  and  recombining  the  notions  conveyed 
by  words  :  or  that  the  manipulation  of  a  mathematical 
formula  can  result  in  the  discovery  of  a  new  mathematical 
truth.  Thus,  a  universal  science  was  established  with 
the  authority  of  a  religious  creed.  Error  became  wicked, 
dissent  became  heresy ;  to  reject  the  received  human  doc- 
trines was  nearly  the  same  as  to  doubt  divine  declara- 
tions.1 

In  the  scholastic  philosophy  so  founded,  physics  had  no 
proper  part,  as  distinguished  from  metaphysics.  u  Quiddi- 
ties "  were  spoken  of  as  distinct  from  qualities  and  quanti- 
ties. Peter  became  an  individual  because  of  his  humanity 
combined  with  "Petreity."2  The  nature  of  angels,  their 
nine  hierarchies,  their  modes  of  conversing  and  the  morning 
and  evening  state  of  their  understandings;3  the  character  of 
the  crystalline  waters  above  the  heavens  wherein  the  stars 
are  set;4  the  mystical  analogies  between  man  and  the  uni- 
verse, such  were  some  of  the  subjects  which  were  discussed 
and  disputed  in  endless  circles  until  minds  became  polarized 

1  Whewell :  Hist,  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  i.,  315;  ii.,  151;  Tenne- 
mann:  Geschichte  der  Philos.,  viii.,  461  ;  Ratike:  Hist,  of  the  Popes,  i., 
502. 

2 Ibid.,  321. 

"Hallam:  Literature  of  Europe,  cit.  sup.  4  Whewell,  318. 


ANGLO-NORMAN    MAGNETIC   KNOWLEDGE.  119 

and  incapable  of  either  receiving  or  understanding  physi- 
cal truths.  And  they  were  always  such  vast  topics,  such 
ponderous  metaphysical  disquisitions;  and  so  momentous 
were  the  consequences  supposed  to  depend  on  them  that 
the  modern  student  heartily  joins  with  old  Burton  in 
wondering  how  his  scholastic  predecessors  "could  sleep 
quietly  and  were  not  terrified  in  the  night,  or  walk  in 
the  dark,  they  had  such  monstrous  questions  and  thought 
such  terrible  matters  all  day  long."  Where  was  there  any 
place  in  the  literature  of  the  beginning  of  such  a  period 
for  exact  physical  descriptions  of  the  magnet  and  its  phe- 
nomena? What  was  substituted  for  them  appears  in  the 
very  first  writing1  in  the  Anglo-Norman  language — the 
lingua  Romana.  This  was  not  a  sermon,  although  the 
resemblance  is  frequently  strong,  but  a  poem  written  in 
1 121  by  Phillippe  de  Thatin,  under  the  high  patronage  of 
the  Queen  of  Henry  I.,  Adelaide  of  Louraine.  The  work 
is  a  Bestiary,  founded  partly  on  Pliny's  Natural  History 
and  partly  on  the  zoological  classifications  of  St.  Isidore, 
interspersed  with  fables — some  evidently  borrowed  from 
the  Orientals.  It  deals  with  the  subject  of  magnetism  in 
the  following  not  altogether  lucid  manner: 

"And  this  know  freely,  that  they  break  in  pieces  the 
lodestone  with  goats'  blood  and  lead:  it  signifies  a  great 
matter.  By  the  blood  of  the  goat,  we  understand  corrup- 
tion in  our  law.  By  the  lead  we  understand  sin  by  which 
men  are  ensnared.  But  the  lead  weighs  the  iron,  which 
draws  sinners  to  hell.  And  this  virtue  it  has  in  it,  that  it 
draws  iron  with  it:  it  signifies  that  Christians  draw  Pagans 
to  their  law  when  they  leave  their  heresy  and  believe." 

Although  these  were  days,  as  I  have  said,  when  any 
eccentricity  in  thought  or  deed  might  give  rise  to  sus- 
picions of  paltering  with  the  powers  of  darkness,  no 
charge  of  sorcery  or  the  compassing  thereof  could  lie 
against  the  inspired  author  of  this  sort  of  poesy;  but 
when,  in  the  following  paragraph,  he  proceeds  to  describe 

1  Wright,  T.:  Popular  Treatises  on  Science  during  the  Middle  Ages,  125. 


120         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

a  mountain  in  the  east  where  the  adamant  is  found,  which 
mountain  (whether  because  of  the  lodestone  in  it  or  not, 
lie  carefully  neglects  to  say)  uby  night  emits  a  great  light 
and  it  does  not  appear  in  the  face  of  day,"  he  becomes  ap- 
prehensive. So  with  entire  prudence,  he  makes  it  clear 
that  he,  the  poet,  does  not  aver  this,  but  that  it  is  the 
dictum  of  Physiologus — an  expedient  which  many  writers 
of  later  times  found  convenient  to  imitate  when  discussing 
prohibited  subjects  in  a  way  likely  to  arouse  in  their  be- 
half the  solicitude  of  the  Holy  Inquisition. 

The  intellectual  movement  in  both  literature  and  sci- 
ence gained  force  rapidly  as  the  i2th  century  advanced. 
Schools  sprang  up  over  the  continent,  and  letters  were 
cultivated  nowhere  better  than  in  Normandy.  Then  the 
Norman  French — the  Langue  d^oui — gradually  became 
the  vehicle  of  literary  expression,  and,  with  the  reign 
of  Richard — he  of  the  lion  heart  and  poet  soul — a  new 
era  of  literature  intervenes,  when  the  trouveres  and 
jongleurs  come  upon  the  scene  and  the  indomitable 
Norman  spirit  bursts  forth  in  romances  of  chivalry  and 
honor  and  love:  and  when  the  beautiful  legends  of  Arthur 
of  the  round  table  and  the  "San  Graal"  are  told  by  the 
descendants  of  the  fierce  Berserkers,  whose  delight  lay  in 
hearing  over  and  again  the  bloody  sagas  of  rapine  and 
massacre  stridently  shouted  by  the  Skalds. 

In  the  month  of  September,  1157,  two  infants,  born  on 
the  same  day,  the  one  at  Windsor,  the  other  at  St.  Albans, 
were  confided  to  the  care  of  good  dame  Neckam.  The 
first  was  Richard  of  England,  son  of  King  Henry;  the 
second,  she  herself,  by  the  best  of  all  rights,  named  Alex- 
ander,1 and  afterwards  he  became  commonly  known  as 
Alexander  of  St.  Albans. 

1  Wright,  T.  Alexander  Neckam,  lib.  ii.  London,  1863,  quoting  MSS. 
James  Coll.,  vii.  34.  Wright's  Latin  text  of  Neckam's  treatise  and  his 
biographical  introduction  thereto,  have  been  followed  in  the  present 
chapter. 


ALEXANDER   NECKAM.  121 

The  boys,  after  the  manner  of  foster  brothers  in  those 
days,  grew  up  together  until  the  difference  in  their 
stations  moved  them  asunder.  The  Prince  went  to  the 
wars — the  subject  to  the  schools.  Perhaps  the  royal  favor 
followed  the  young  student,  for  we  find  him  a  distin- 
guished professor  at  the  University  of  Paris  when  but 
twenty- three  years  of  age:  and  a  member  of  the  school 
which  had  been  established  by  his  countryman,  Adam  du 
Petit  Pont,  which  was  celebrated  for  the  subtleties  of  its 
disputations.  Here,  he  tells  us,  he  both  studied  and 
taught  the  arts — rhetoric,  poetry,  civil  and  canon  law, 
Biblical  criticism  and  medicine:  an  odd  combination  from 
a  modern  point  of  view.  Then  he  returned  to  England 
and  became  master  of  the  Dunstable  school;  but  he  evi- 
dently had  less  taste  for  teaching  than  for  learning,  and 
the  books,  the  congenial  companionship,  the  literary  at- 
mosphere to  be  found  only  in  the  monasteries,  became 
an  overpowering  attraction  to  the  scholar,  who  felt,  as 
many  another  of  like  kidney  has  felt  since,  that  he  was 
made  for  better  work  than  hammering  a  parrot-like 
knowledge  of  the  Trivium  into  boys  whom  the  Assize  of 
Arms  was  enrolling  in  the  new  militia  as  quickly  as  they 
were  able  to  wield  a  lance. 

So  he  wrote  to  the  Abbot  of  St.  Benedict,  seeking  ad- 
mission into*  that  order;  for  of  all  monks,  the  Benedictines 
were,  in  pursuance  of  the  injunctions  of  their  founder, 
most  devoted  to  letters. 

"Si  vis  veniam :  sin  autem,  etc."  (If  you  wish  I  will 
come  :  if  not,  etc.)  ran  his  missive,  with  a  curtness  and  a 
shade  of  hauteur  worthy  of  his  royal  nursemate.  But  the 
witty  Abbot  had  a  pat  answer,  and  a  pun  besides,  ready  at 
hand  : 

"Si  bonus  es,  venias  :  si  nequam,  nequaquam."  (If  you 
are  good  for  something,  you  may  come  :  if  not,  don't.) 
The  u  nequam"  and  "Neckam"  were  perilously  alike: 
too  nearly  so  for  the  sensitive  spirit  of  the  would-be  monk; 
so  he  turned  his  back  on  Benedict's  house  and  made  favor 


122         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

with  that  of  Augustine  at  Cirencester.  There  he  seems  to 
have  lived  out  his  days  uneventfully  and  to  have  risen  to 
be  Abbot.  He  died  at  Kempsey,  near  Worcester,  in  1217, 
and  that  is  all  that  is  known  about  him  personally. 

Neckam  was  a  typical  product  of  the  prevailing  philos- 
ophy of  his  time.  His  principal  treatise  bears  the  title 
De  Natura  Rerum,  which  was  a  stereotyped  one  among 
the  mediaeval  encyclopaedists,  and  in  it  he  epitomizes  all 
the  scientific  knowledge  of  his  day  which  he  has  gathered 
by  observation,  and  proceeds  to  explain  it  by  the  aid  of  a 
tropical  imagination  tempered  by  theology.  He  delights 
in  intellectual  labor,  and  detests  scholastic  methods,  yet 
sees  no  other  mode  than  these  last  by  which  its  produc- 
tions may  be  utilized.  He  collects  his  facts  with  patient 
care,  all  the  time  thinking  that  the  study  of  the  liberal 
arts,  while  useful,  leads  people  into  the  u  vanity  of  over- 
curious  researches.  n  And  then  he  seeks  to  reconcile  the 
inconsistency  by  averring  that  the  arts  are  commendable 
in  themselves,  but  those  who  abuse  them  are  worthy  of 
reprehension  :  regardless  as  to  whether  or  not  he  himself 
may  be  found  in  the  latter  category.  But  for  scholastic 
reasoning  as  such,  it  is  "  a  thing  full  of  vacuities." 

There  is  no  direct  statement  in  Neckam's  writings 
which  fixes  exactly  the  time  when  they  were  produced  ; 
but  John  of  Brompton,  whose  chronicle  ends  with  the 
accession  of  King  John  (which  occurred  during  his  life- 
time), quotes  from  the  De  Natura  Rerum  in  a  way  that 
shows  it  to  have  been  well  known  at  the  end  of  the  I2th 
century.  It  is  a  treatise  constructed  very  much  on  the 
lines  of  St.  Isidore's  Etymologies,  but  is  not  so  categorical 
as  the  older  work.  It  is  a  treasure  house  of  curious  folk- 
lore and  legends.  In  it  appears  for  the  first  time  the  fancy 
of  the  Man  in  the  Moon;  the  traditions  of  the  development 
of  the  goose  from  the  barnacle;1  the  swan  that  sings  ere  it 
dies  ;  the  unnatural  ostrich  which  starves  its  young,  and 


persisted  even  in  the  Royal  Society  at  the  end  of  the  I7th  cen- 
tury.    Phil.  Trans.,  No.  137,  p.  927,  vol.  xii.,  1677-8. 


ALEXANDER   NECKAM.  123 

the  pelican  which  dies  to  feed  them;  the  nightingale 
which  sings  on  one  bank  of  a  stream  and  never  on  the 
other;  the  grasshoppers  generated  by  the  cuckoo;  the  par- 
rot which  drops  dead  on  hearing  the  language  of  its  native 
land;  the  dog  which  manages  the  sails  of  a  boat  which  its 
master  steers  ;  the  wren  which  hides  under  the  eagle's 
wing  and  when  the  eagle  rises  in  the  air  above  all  other 
birds,  slips  out  and  flutters  over  him  and  so  wins  the  con- 
test; the  squirrel  which  crosses  rivers  on  a  chip  with  his 
tail  for  a  sail ;  the  lynx  with  eyes  so  sharp  that  it  can  see 
through  nine  walls :  all  discussed  as  Neckam  promises  in 
the  beginning — u morally." 

The  portions  of  Neckam's  writings  which  are  of  especial 
interest  and  importance  in  our  present  research  are  the 
chapter1  on  attractive  strength  in  his  De  Natura  Rerum, 
and  a  paragraph  in  another  treatise  De  Utensilibus,  the 
last  being  a  sort  of  vocabulary  or  series  of  lists  of  articles 
in  ordinary  use.  These  show  clearly  the  point  to  which 
knowledge  of  the  magnet  and  amber  had  progressed,  and 
the  curious  conceptions  and  fancies  which  had  become  in- 
termingled with  it. 

In  attacking  the  subject  of  attraction,  Neckam  defines 
the  existing  doctrine  of  similitudes,  which  was  very  closely 
like  the  ancient  theory  of  sympathies  and  antipathies,  by 
means  of  which  it  was  sought  to  explain  every  phenomenon 
of  nature  by  a  mutual  affinity  or  reciprocal  dependence  of 
bodies,  whether  celestial  or  terrestrial,  organic  or  inor- 
ganic; such  as  gravity,  cohesion,  the  force  we  call  chemi- 
cal " affinity,"  (and  for  which  we  still  retain  the  old  name 
though  with  a  different  understanding  of  it)  and  all  move- 
ments, natural  and  instinctive,  of  living  things. 

The  theory  came  originally  from  the  Greek,  and  espec- 
ially from  Galen,  who  maintained  that  there  was  a  vital, 
intelligent  and  divine  power  in  nature,  by  virtue  of  which 
every  substance  appropriates  that  which  suits  its  constitu- 

*Cap.  xcviii. 


124         TH3  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tion  and  its  needs.1  This  was  practically  giving  to  the 
nature-soul  of  the  ancient  Greeks  a  selective  capacity. 
In  the  9th  and  loth  centuries  the  Arabs  applied  the  same 
doctrine  to  the  magnet.  Serapion  says  that  a  solvent 
medicine,  when  it  reaches  the  stomach,  then  draws  with 
an  attractive  virtue  the  humor  suitable  to  itself,  but  it  is 
not  drawn  to  the  humor;  just  as  the  magnet  moves  the 
iron  to  itself,  but  is  not  moved  to  the  iron.2  AH  ben 
Abbas  likewise  makes  a  similar  comparison,3  which,  in 
later  writers,  is  repeated  over  and  over  again,  although  it 
is  essentially  false,  and  simply  due  to  the  iron  being  more 
weakly  magnetized  than  the  attracting  lodestone. 

The  doctrine  of  similitudes  is  thus  a  mediaeval  form  of 
the  old  canon  similia  similibus,  and  rests  on  the  same 
concepts.  All  compounds,  for  example,  were  supposed  to 
derive  their  qualities  from  their  elements  by  resemblance, 
being  hot  by  reason  of  a  hot  element,  heavy  in  virtue  of  a 
heavy  element,  and  so  on.  For  a  long  period,  medical 
science  rested  on  these  distinctions,  disorders  being  hot 
and  cold,  and  remedies  being  similarly  classified.  One 
Eastern  story  teller  relates4  that  the  Persian  physicians  were 
scandalized  by  the  prescription  of  mercury  by  a  European 
brother,  for  the  cure  of  ill-effects  following  over-indulgence 
in  cucumbers;  for,  they  maintained,  cucumbers  are  cold, 
and  hence  their  ill-effects  can  not  be  overcome  by  mer- 
cury, which  is  cold  also.  "He  makes  no  distinction," 
complain  the  oriental  practitioners,  "between  hot  and 
cold  diseases  and  hot  and  cold  remedies,  as  Galeuus  and 
Avicenna  have  ordered,  but  gives  mercury  as  a  cooling 
medicine." 

1  Martin  :  Obs'ns  and  Theories  of  the  Ancients  on  Magnetic  Attractions 
and  Repulsions.     See  also  Atti  dell'  Accademia  Pont,  de  Nuovi  Liucei, 
T.  xviii.,  1864-5. 

2  Steinschneider :  Intorno  ad  alcuni  passi  di  Opere  del  Medio  Evo  rela- 
tivi  alia  calamita.     Rome,  1868. 

8  Lib.  Practicae,  lib.  ii.  c.,  53. 

*The  Adventures  of  Hadji  Baba.     Ed.  by  J.  Morier,  N.  Y.,  1855,  p.  98. 


ALEXANDER  NECKAM.  135 

Similar  notions  persisted  among  the  metallurgists  until 
the  beginning  of  the  i8th  century.  Thus  the  ready  com- 
bination of  metals  with  mercury  to  form  amalgams  was 
regarded  as  proof  of  mutual  benignant  regard,  and  the 
combination  of  metals  in  their  alloys  was  similarly  ex- 
plained, lyead  is  loved  by  gold  and  silver,  but  brass  ab- 
hors lead.1  The  astrologers  claimed  that  metals  exercised 
a  selection  in  benevolently  mixing  with  various  parts  of 
the  human  body,  the  gold  seeking  the  heart;  silver,  the 
brain;  lead,  the  spleen;  mercury,  the  lungs;  tin,  the  liver, 
and  so  on.  But  to  living  beings  as  units,  they  thought 
that  metals  manifested  great  contrariety,  because,  as  it  was 
gravely  pointed  out,  no  animal  could  subsist  on  metals, 
plants  do  not  flourish  where  metallic  veins  abound,  and  in 
mines  the  vapors  are  deadly.  Even  in  preparing  pearls  as 
medicine,  they  must  be  brayed  in  marble  mortars,  because 
otherwise  iron  might  thus  be  imported  into  the  body  and 
act  malevolently. 

Neckam  follows  these  ideas  closely.  Some  things,  he 
says,  are  drawn  naturally,  others  by  accident,  and  when 
by  accident,  either  from  necessity  or  chance  similitude; 
from  necessity,  as  when  the  body,  through  hunger,  attracts 
so  that  its  famishing  members  will  thrive  on  insufficient 
food,  such  as  bran  (there  were  evidently  dyspeptics  in 
those  days)/  or  even  on  noxious  herbs.  Accidental  simil- 
itude occurs  when  non-nourishing  things  are  combined 
with  nutriment.  Natural  attraction  takes  place,  we  are 
told,  in  many  ways,  <las  by  the  power  of  heat,  or  by  a  vir- 
tue, or  by  the  natural  quality  of  similitude,  or  by  the  law 
of  vacuity."  Fire,  for  example,  by  the  strength  of  heat 
draws  oil  for  its  nutriment. 

The  concept  of  an  " attractive"  virtue  is  the  mediaeval 
modification  of  Galen's  selective  vital  force.  This  attrac- 
tion by  virtue,  says  Neckam,  is  caused  in  two  ways,  either 
occultly  or  manifestly.  Occult  virtue  is  closely  allied  to 
similitude  in  its  effects,  and  acts  as  scammony  draws  bile 

1  Aldrovandus:  Musaeum  Metallicum,  ii. 


126         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

and  hellebore  the  vapors.  But  manifest  virtue  is  virtue 
that  is  perceptible -and — here  we  suddenly  find  ourselves 
within  the  borders  of  the  particular  field  which  we  are  ex- 
ploring— it  is  seen  when  the  lodestone  draws  iron  and  the 
jet  chaff. 

This  reference  to  jet  is  noteworthy.  The  ancient  writers 
spoke  of  "gagates,"  which  acted  like  amber,  and  left  it 
in  doubt  what  gagates  might  be.  After  jet  had  been  cer- 
tainly determined  to  possess  the  amber  quality,  the  word 
was  so  interpreted.  Neckam,  however,  is  not  quoting 
from  any  ancient  author,  but  stating  his  own  facts  and  be- 
liefs; and  the  frequent  later  use  of  the  English  word  "jet" 
by  English  writers  instead  of  "amber,"  in  referring  to  the 
phenomenon  figuratively,  renders  it  altogether  probable 
that  the  learned  Abbot  was  speaking  not  of  the  doubtful 
substance  from  Lydia,  which  he  had  never  seen,  but  the 
lustrous  black  stone  which  had  been  mined  in  his  own 
country  ever  since  the  Roman  invasion.1 

"If  you  ask  its  value  as  an  ornament,"  he  says,  "jet  is 
black  and  brilliant:  if  its  nature,  water  burns  it  and  it  is 
extinguished  by  oil:  if  its  power,  being  heated  by  rubbing, 
it  holds  things  applied  to  it,  like  amber:  if  its  use,  it  is  an 
excellent  remedy  for  dropsy."  It  was  commonly  found  in 
Derbyshire  and  Berwick,  and  the  Romans  preferred  it  to 
that  which  was  found  in  Germany.  "The  old  writers," 
says  Harrison,2  "remember  few  other  stones  of  estimation 
to  be  found  in  this  Island,  than  that  which  we  call  'geat,' 
and  they,  in  Latin,  'gegates.'  " 

The  explanation  of  "the  quality  of  natural  similitude 
not  without  attractive  virtue"  is  ushered  in  by  an  illustra- 
tion borrowed  evidently  from  the  Arabs.  A  warm  stomach 
draws  warm  nourishment,  and  a  cold  stomach,  cold  nour- 
ishment: and  we  are  to  note  that,  according  as  by  friendly 

1  The  value  of  jet  and  of  Kitnmeridge  coal  for  ornamental  purposes  was 
then  well  understood,  and  jet  ornaments  have  been  found  in  graves  of  the 
period.  Traill:  Social  England,  i.  92. 

2 Harrison:  A  Description  of  England.     London,  1577. 


SYMPATHIES   AND  SIMILITUDES.  127 

similitude,  attraction  occurs,  so,  by  hostile  dissimilitude 
expulsion  takes  place.  So  that,  for  example,  if  vinegar 
and  water  be  poured  around  a  tree,  the  water  will  be 
absorbed  and  the  vinegar  rejected. 

Now  comes  the  first  faint  suggestion  of  the  polarity  of 
the  lodestone.  "So,"  he  says,  continuing  his  illustration, 
uthe  lodestone  attracts  by  one  part  by  similitude  and  from 
another  part  expels  by  dissimilitude."  This  is  not  the 
mere  statement  that  a  lodestone  will  repel  as  well  as  at- 
tract: nor  is  it,  on  the  other  hand,  quite  the  affirmance  of 
" opposite  effects  at  opposite  ends,"  but  it  is  a  clear  recog- 
nition that  one  and  the  same  stone  will  repel  at  one  part 
and  attract  at  another  part.  Where  these  parts  were  situ- 
ated with  reference  to  the  figure  of  the  magnet — whether 
at  its  ends  or  otherwise — Neckam  did  not  know;  but  that 
this  dual  property  exists  in  it,  he  makes  plain.  Compare 
Neckam's  statement  with  that  of  Aldrovandus  written  four 
centuries  later;  "the  lodestone  attracts  iron  by  natural  sym- 
pathy at  one  end  and  repels  it  by  antipathy  at  the  other." 

Continuing,  he  explains  that  the  appetite  virtue  draws 
by  friendly  similitude,  and  the  expulsive  virtue  rejects  by 
hostile  dissimilitude;  but  the  attracting  thing — again  he 
goes  back  to  the  Arabs — must  act  more  violently  than  the 
attracted  thing,  for  if  equal  they  would  counterbalance. 
Whence  it  is  that  the  lodestone  draws  iron  and  not  an- 
other lodestone,  although  it  may  have  thereto  greater 
similitude,  because  the  lodestone  opposes  to  the  lodestone 
an  equal  and  mutual  contradiction.  The  iron  yields  itself 
because  of  weaker  virtue. 

The  entanglement  of  his  mind  in  the  snares  of  sympa- 
thies and  similitudes  is  obvious.  On  the  theory  of  simili- 
tude, a  lodestone  should  attract  another  lodestone  ;  but 
that,  he  holds,  is  not  the  fact.  Similia  similibus  cannot 
be  at  fault;  that  would  be  to  dispute  the  hypothesis,  which 
is  indisputable.  Wherefore,  query,  how  can  an  incontro- 
vertible fact  be  reconciled  with  an  indisputable  theory 
when  they  diametrically  disagree? 


128         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  dialectical  subtlety  of  the  problem  cannot  have 
been  otherwise  than  fascinating  to  the  intellect  skilled  in 
the  casuistries  of  the  Petit  Pont,  and  it  grappled  with  the 
difficulties  just  as  it  had  perhaps  many  a  time  done  with 

"Whether  angels  in  moving  from  place  to  place 
Pass  through  the  intermediate  space  " 

— and  emerged  triumphantly. 

The  similitude  is  undeniable ;  so,  likewise,  the  sympa- 
thy. One  lodestone  resembles  and  sympathizes  with  the 
other,  even  as  the  other  does  with  it.  Therefore,  why 
should  attrahens  act  upon  attractum  any  more  than  at- 
tractum  upon  attrahens?  If  Sortes  and  Scholasticus  at 
opposite  ends  of  a  rope  pull  against  one  another  with  equal 
strength,  is  Sortes  drawn  to  Scholasticus  or  Scholasticus 
to  Sortes?  Certainly  not;  they  remain  quiescent  in  statu 
quo ;  so  do  the  lodestones.  Q.  B.  D. 

Now,  this  is  not  setting  up  Sortes — that  favorite  straw 
man  of  the  schools — to  be  proved  a  stone,  or  a  rose,  or  a 
lily,  or  what  not;  nor  does  it  demonstrate  that  any  remark 
of  Sortes  is  both  true  and  false  at  one  and  the  same 
time,  nor  that  he  knows  something,  yet  nothing  —  all 
favorite  quibbles  of  the  mediaeval  disputants — and,  there- 
fore, what  Neckam  calls  u  vacuities":  this  is  what  a  i2th 
century  mind,  trying  to  break  away  from  that  sort  of  reas- 
oning, manages  to  accomplish,  in  the  effort  The  reason- 
ing is  wrong,  of  course;  but  it  is  physical  reasoning,  and 
that,  even  if  wrong,  is  something  better  than  "vacuities." 

Now  follows  in  this  old  treatise  of  an  English  monk 
probably  the  first  of  all  known  descriptions  of  the  mar- 
iner* s  compass.  Here  it  is: 

"The  sailors,  moreover,  as  they  sail  over  the  sea,  when 
in  cloudy  weather  they  can  no  longer  profit  by  the  light  of 
the  sun,  or  when  the  world  is  wrapped  in  the  darkness  of 
the  shades  of  night,  and  they  are  ignorant  to  what  part 
of  the  horizon  the  prow  is  directed,  place  the  needle  over 
the  magnet,  which  is  whirled  round  in  a  circle,  until, 


THE  FIRST  MARINER'S  COMPASS.  129 

when  the  motion  ceases;  the  point  of  it  (the  needle)  looks 
to  North." 

The  paragraph  from  the  De  Utensilibus  may  be  best 
considered  simultaneously  with  the  foregoing.  The  Latin 
words1  present  many  obscurities,  to  which  it  is  needless 
to  refer  in  detail  here,  since  they  are  considered  in  the  fol- 
lowing translation: 

"If  then  one  wishes  a  ship  well  provided  with  all  things, 
one  must  have  also  a  needle  mounted  on  a  dart.  The 
needle  will  be  oscillated  and  turn  until  the  point  of  the 
needle  directs  itself  to  the  Bast  (North),  thus  making 
known  to  the  sailors  the  route  which  they  should  hold 
while  the  Little  Bear  is  concealed  from  them  by  the  vicis- 
situdes of  the  atmosphere;  for  it  never  disappears  under 
the  horizon  because  of  the  smallness  of  the  circle  which  it 
describes. ' ' 2 

The  manner  of  using  the  compass  described  in  these  re- 
markable passages  is  altogether  different  from  that  now 
followed;  but  is  easily  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  in- 

1  ''Qui  ergo  tnunitam  vult  habere  navem  habet  etiam  acum  jaculo  sup- 
positam.  Rotabitur  enim  et  circumvolvetur  acus,  donee  cuspis  acus 
respiciat  orientem;  sicque  comprehendunt  quo  tendere  debeant  nautae 
cum  Cynosura  latet  in  aeris  turbatione;  quamvis  ad  occasum  numquam 
tendat,  propter  circuli  brevitatem."  Wright,  T. :  A  Volume  of  Vocabu- 
laries, London,  1*857. 

2D'Avezac:  Anciens  Temoignages  Historiques  Relatifs  a  la  Boussole. 
Bull,  de  la  Soc.  Geog.,  19  Feb.,  1858. 

S*ee,  also,  Bertelli  ;  sulla  Bpistola  de  P.  Peregrine,  Rome,  1868,  Mem. 
ii.  p.  41.  D'Avezac  points  out  that  the  statement  in  the  original  that  the 
needle  directs  itself  to  the  East  is  evidently  an  error,  and  translates  the 
somewhat  ambiguous  clause  with  reference  to  the  Little  Bear  as  given 
above.  In  this  Bertelli  concurs,  but  dissents  from  D' Avezac's  rendering  of 
"  suppositam  "  as  if  it  were  "  superpositam  "  and  consequent  translation 
of  "acum  jaculo  suppositam  "  as  "  a  needle  mounted  on  a  pivot."  It  is 
thought  that  Bertelli  is  right,  on  the  principle  that  no  physical  discovery 
ought  to  be  ante-dated  merely  by  a  possible  change  in  the  signification 
of  words.  The  burden  of  proof  is  on  D'Avezac  not  only  to  demonstrate 
that  his  rendering  is  reasonable,  but  also  from  other  sources  to  show 
that  a  pivoted  compass  was  known  at  or  about  Neckam's  time;  and  this 
he  fails  to  do. 

9 


130         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

formation  afforded  by  the  early  writers,  whose  works  ap- 
peared shortly  after  Neckatn's  treatises. 

The  needle  was  not  in  constant  use,  as  it  is  now,  on  a 
ship  at  sea,  nor  was  it  even  employed  to  indicate  any  par- 
ticular course.  The  roughness  of  the  construction  of  the 
first  compasses  made  them  wholly  unsuitable  for  such  pur- 
pose. When  the  Pole-star  could  be  seen  at  night,  the  pilot 
steered  by  it,  as  usual,  and  by  day  he  kept  along  shore. 
If,  however,  the  sky  at  night  became  cloudy,  so  that  the 
stars  were  obscured,  the  needle  was  brought  out  and  rubbed 
with  the  lodestone.  This  rubbing  was  repeated  every  time 
the  needle  was  used,  and  is  what  is  meant  by  (acum  super 
magnetem  ponunt)  the  placing  of  the  needle  over  the  mag- 
net. This  operation  was  called  "  inunction."  The  needle 
was  thrust  through  a  reed  or  short  piece  of  wood  (jaculo 
suppositam),  which  supported  it  floating  in  a  vessel  of 
water.  If  the  needle  was  left  in  this  receptacle,  naturally 
it  would  move  against  the  side,  and  thus  be  held,  by  con- 
tact, in  a  position  not  at  all  coinciding  necessarily  with 
the  earth's  lines  of  force.  Consequently  its  magnetic 
quality  would  become  more  or  less  impaired,  and  that  was 
apparently  one  reason  for  the  remagnetization  prior  to 
every  observation.  Another  reason  probably  was  the  re- 
moval, by  the  rubbing  process,  of  the  rust  which  would 
accumulate  on  the  iron  needle,  the  effect  of  the  oxidation 
being  to  enlarge  the  needle  and  to  roughen  it,  and  so  to 
impede  its  free  movement  on  the  water. 

After  the  needle  had  been  magnetized  and  carefully 
floated  it  was  given  an  oscillating  and  circular  movement, 
in  order  to  carry  it  clear  of  the  sides  of  the  vessel  and  to 
overcome  its  own  inertia,  and  also  the  normal  resistance  of 
the  water  to  its  motion.  This  was  done  by  moving  the 
magnet  in  the  vicinity  of  the  needle  in  a  circular  direction, 
the  magnet  attracting  the  needle  and  causing  it  to  follow. 
After  this  motion  was  established  the  lodestone  was  with- 
drawn and  the  needle  allowed  to  come  to  rest,  and  the 
point  on  the  horizon  noted  which  the  north  end  desig- 
nated. 


DISCOVERIES   IN   MAGNETISM.  131 

It  is  plain  that  this  operation  must  have  required  con- 
siderable thought  for  its  invention.  It  was  necessary  to 
discover,  y£r^,  that  a  lodestone  bar  would,  when  free  to 
turn,  place  itself  longitudinally  in  a  north  and  south 
direction :  second,  that  an  artificial  lodestone  could  be 
made  by  rubbing  a  needle  with  the  natural  lodestone: 
third,  that  such  a  needle  would  place  itself  north  and 
south  in  the  same  way  as  a  lodestone :  fourth,  that  such  a 
needle  would  be  free  to  turn  if  floated  on  water:  fifth, 
that  a  certain  end  of  the  needle  would  always  point  to  the 
star,  and  that  the  indication  of  that  end  must  be  followed  : 
sixth,  that,  in  order  to  make  this  extremity  always  north- 
indicating,  the  needle  must  be  rubbed  with  a  definite  part 
of  the  magnet  and  in  a  definite  way,  that  is  to  say,  the 
needle  must  be  rubbed  from  south-pointing  end  to  north- 
pointing  end  by  a  certain  part  of  the  magnet,  or  from 
north-pointing  end  to  south-pointing  end  by  an  opposite 
part  of  the  same  magnet;  any  departure  from  the  foregoing 
would  make  the  end  of  the  needle  regarded  as  north- 
pointing  turn  to  the  south,  and  so  destroy  the  utility  of 
the  apparatus  :  seventh,  that  the  floating  needle  would  not 
only  follow  a  lodestone  bodily,  as  the  iron  moved  over  the 
silver  dish,  as  told  by  St.  Augustine,  but  by  suitably  mov- 
ing the  lodestone  it  could  be  made  to  rotate :  eighth,  that 
the  inertia  of  the  needle  and  the  resistance  of  the  water 
could  be  first  overcome  artificially  and  the  needle  set  in 
motion,  so  that  afterwards  the  directive  force  of  the  earth, 
tending  to  set  the  needle  in  a  particular  position,  north 
and  south,  would  act  jointly  with  the  inertia  and  the 
liquid  resistance  as  a  force  tending  to  stop  the  needle,  in- 
stead of  as  a  force  tending  to  set  the  needle  in  motion  in 
opposition  to  both  of  these  resistances. 

This  is  a  most  extraordinary  category  of  discoveries  for 
any  period  of  the  world's  history,  let  alone  a  time  when 
physical  research  was  impeded  in  every  direction,  and  the 
human  brain  supposed  competent  to  evolve  all  human 
knowledge.  It  includes  the  perception  of  a  difference  be- 


132         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

tween  the  effects  produced  by  different  parts  of  the  lode- 
stone,  in  order  that  the  magnetizing  operations  above  de- 
scribed might  be  done  ;  the  directive  tendency  of  the  mag- 
net ;  the  making  of  artificial  magnets  by  rubbing  iron 
needles  with  the  stone,  such  magnets  also  showing  differ- 
ent properties  at  opposite  parts;  the  supporting  of  the  com- 
pass needle  on  liquid,  as  a  rotary  armature;  the  prevention 
of  the  disturbing  effects  of  inertia  and  fluid  resistance,  and 
the  use  of  the  instrument  to  reveal  the  position  of  the  hid- 
den Pole  star.  It  is  contrary  to  the  teaching  of  the  his- 
tory of  human  invention  since  the  beginning  of  the  world, 
to  the  principle  which  underlies  all  human  progress,  to 
assume  that  all  these  discoveries  were  made  simultane- 
ously, and  therefore  that  the  compass  of  Neckain,  crude 
as  it  is,  was  the  product  of  a  single  inventive  act.  On 
the  contrary,  such  a  chain  of  phenomena  is  of  necessity 
the  result  of  evolution,  and  of  slow  evolution  because  oc- 
curring at  a  period  when  the  current  of  all  exact  thought 
moved  most  sluggishly. 

Observe  that  Neckam  has  linked  together  all  the  elec- 
tric knowledge  of  his  time.  In  the  same  treatise  he  dis- 
cusses amber  and  lodestone  attraction,  the  repelling  effect 
of  the  magnet,  the  polarity  of  it,  and  as  the  fruit  and 
flower  of  all,  exhibits  the  mariner's  compass.  Klaproth, 
as  I  have  stated,  says  that  the  Chinese  had  no  knowledge 
of  the  instrument  until  during  the  I3th  century,  and  hence 
after  Neckam' s  day.  The  claim  made  by  another  author- 
ity, that  a  single  Chinese  writing  asserts  that  the  compass 
was  used  on  a  voyage  in  1122  A.  D.,  furnishes  no  proof 
that  afterwards,  and  between  that  date  and  the  period 
which  Klaproth  takes  as  the  earliest,  there  was  any  con- 
tinued marine  employment  of  the  magnetic  needle  by  the 
Chinese.  It  is  hardly  reasonable  to  assume  that  the  in- 
telligence of  this  isolated  use  in  1122  could  have  reached 
England  in  the  very  depths  of  the  Dark  Ages,  at  a  time 
more  than  150  years  before  Marco  Polo  made  his  famous 
voyage,  when  practically  no  communication  existed  be- 


EUROPEAN   TRADITIONS  OF  THE  COMPASS.  133 

tween  China  and  Western  Europe  and  when  no  channel 
can  be  recognized  by  which  such  news  could  have  come 
by  way  of  the  Arabs.  Nevertheless,  it  is  impossible,  as 
already  stated,  to  conceive  that  the  mariner's  compass  had 
not  been  slowly  evolving  somewhere  before  Neckam  de- 
scribed it.  Yet,  where?  We  have  examined  in  vain  the 
knowledge  of  all  nations  which  at  various  times  and  by 
various  authorities  have  been  credited  with  its  invention. 
How  came  it  to  be  known  and  in  use  in  Northern  Europe 
before  Neckam' s  day? 

Does  the  intellectual  rise  in  electricity  include  a  lost  art 
regained?  True,  traditions  as  to  the  antiquity  of  the  com- 
pass in  Europe  have  never  been  wholly  wanting.  The 
Emperor  Charlemagne  is  said  to  have  given  to  the  cardinal 
points  (which,  as  we  have  seen,  were  established  and  so 
termed  by  the  Etruscans)  the  Teutonic  names,  North, 
South,  East  and  West,  which  they  still  bear  ;  and  to  have 
also  named  the  four  intermediate  rhumbs,  North-East, 
North-West,  South-East  and  South-West.  The  sailors  of 
Bruges  in  Flanders,  moreover,  have  always  been  reputed 
to  be  the  inventors  of  the  remaining  eight  points,  complet- 
ing the  thirty-two,  to  which  they  gave  the  present  Teu- 
tonic designations  during  the  I2th  century.1 

The  venerable  Dr.  Wallis,  writing  in  1702,  at  the  age 
of  eighty-six,  gives  it  as  his  opinion  that  the  mariner's 
compass  was  originally  an  English  invention — "for  the 
word  'compass'  is  an  ancient  English  word  for  what  we 
otherwise  call  by  a  French  name  a  '  circle.'  And  I  am  sure 
that  within  my  memory,  in  the  place  where  I  was  born 
and  bred,  it  was  wont  to  be  so  called,  though  the  word 
4  circle  '  is  more  in  use."  2 

'Anderson:  Origin  of  Commerce,  London,  1787,  v.  i,  61.  Quoting 
Goropius  apud  Morisotus,  and  Verstegan. 

2  Phil.  Trans.,  xxii.,  276;  xxiii.,  278. 

"My  green  bed  embroidered  with  a  compas,"  is  mentioned  in  the  will 
of  Edward,  Duke  of  York,  dec'd  1415.  Nicolas:  Testamenta  Vetusta, 
London,  1826. 


134         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

There  is  material  for  conjecture,  however,  perhaps 
more  persuasive  than  any  based  on  such  traditions  and 
inferences  as  the  foregoing.  The  pursuit  of  it  leads  us  to 
the  far  north,  to  the  sea  on  the  shores  of  which  the  amber 
was  first  gathered,  and  to  the  great  island  city  once  grand 
in  marble  and  brass,  but  of  which  now  even  the  ruins  are 
forgotten. 


In  the  Baltic,  about  equidistant  from  Sweden,  Russia, 
and  Germany,  lies  the  island  of  Gottland,  by  some  iden- 
tified as  the  Kungla  of  the  national  epic1  of  the  Esthon- 
ians,  where  it  is  always  described  as  a  fairy  land  of  adven- 
ture and  untold  wealth.  Hither  came  the  maritime  com- 
merce of  the  Wendic  people  after  their  capital  city,  Veneta, 
had  been  destroyed  in  1043.  Originally  occupied  by 
Goths,  and  later  jointly  by  Goths  and  Germans,  these 
tribes  maintained  incessant  contests,  which  ultimately  led 
to  the  downfall  of  the  place.  During  the  period  of  its 
supremacy,  the  island  became  a  rendezvous  for  the  vessels 
of  all  trading  nations,  and  its  principal  settlement,  Wisby 
or  Wisbuy,  despite  the  constant  internal  strife,  grew 
into  a  city  of  large  extent,  the  ruins  of  which  have  re- 
vealed many  works  of  art  and  luxury.  Olaus  Magnus,2 
the  great  historian  of  the  North,  writing  in  1555,  speaks 
of  it  as  a  noble  town,  possessing  a  strongly-defended 
citadel.  He  says  that  it  was  the  emporium  of  many 
regions,  and  that  nowhere  else  in  Europe  was  there  such 
trade:  that  flocking  thither  came  the  Goths,  the  Gauls, 
the  Swedes,  the  Russians,  the  Danes,  the  Angles,  the 
Scots,  the  Flemings,  the  Vandals,  the  Saxons,  the  Span- 
iards and  the  Finns;  these  different  people  freely  mingling 
with  one  another  and  filling  the  streets,  the  town  hospi- 
tably welcoming  all;  that,  in  his  time,  there  still  remained 

'The  Kalevipoeg.     See  Kirby  :  The  Hero  of  Esthonia.     London,  1895. 
2  Olaus  Magnus:  Hist,  de  Gent  Septen.     Rome,  1555,  lib.  2,  cxxiv. 


WISBUY.  135 

marble  ruins,  vaulted  halls  and  iron  gates,  windows  decor- 
ated with  copper  and  brass,  afterwards  gilded — all  showing 
the  grandeur  of  a  bygone  age.  By  1288  the  city  seems 
to  have  become  dilapidated  through  the  continual  feuds; 
but,  in  that  year,  Magnus,  King  of  Sweden,  allowed  the 
citizens  to  rebuild  their  walls  and  fortifications — a  cir- 
cumstance which  has  led  some  historians  into  the  errone- 
ous belief  that  the  place  was  then,  for  the  first  time,  estab- 
lished. 

It  naturally  followed  that  amid  such  a  vast  concourse  of 
foreigners,  all  seafaring  men,  disputes  constantly  arose, 
based  on  controversies  peculiar  to  the  mariner's  calling 
— the  relative  rights  of  masters  and  seamen,  of  owners 
and  shippers,  the  adjustment  of  marine  losses,  contracts 
governing  the  chartering  and  maintenance  of  ships  and 
crews,  and  so  on  through  the  great  body  of  that  branch 
of  jurisprudence  now  known  as  admiralty. 

There  is  probably  no  one  more  stubbornly  conservative 
of  his  rights  than  the  sailor,  or  more  ready  to  assert  them ; 
and  as  this  has  always  been  found  true  of  his  species  since 
time  whereof  the  memory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  con- 
trary, there  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  the  mariners  who 
took  their  liberty  in  the  streets  of  Wisbuy  differed  mate- 
rially in  modes  of  thought  and  action  from  those  who 
congregate  to-day  in  the  great  maritime  ports  of  the  world. 
Jack  came  ashore,  and  probably  spent  his  hard-earned 
wages  and  fought  the  "  beach  combers"  and  the  "rock 
scorpions  "  and  became  the  prey  of  the  crimps  of  Wisbuy 
and  the  terror  of  its  police,  just  as  he  does  now  at  Gibral- 
tar, or  Liverpool,  or  Hong  Kong;  while  the  owners  and 
the  masters  and  the  average  adjusters  and  the  sea-lawyers 
wrangled  over  questions  of  jettison  and  demurrage  and 
collision  with  the  same  fervor  that  brings  them  nowadays 
into  the  Admiralty  Courts.  The  consequence  was  that 
two  sets  of  locally-devised  laws  came  into  existence,  ad- 
ministered by  the  consulate  courts  or  authorities  of  the 
city — the  one  known  as  the  Ordinances  of  Wisbuy,  con- 


136         THK   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

trolling  all  matters  pertaining  to  the  harbor,  docks  and  to 
vessels  in  port;  and  the  other,  known  as  the  Laws  of  Wis- 
buy,  governing  rights  on  the  high  seas.  To  these  statutes 
merchants  and  sailors  submitted  by  general  custom  and 
consent,1  and  they  submit  to  them  still,  for  they  are  im- 
bedded in  modern  codes  of  marine  law.  Whether  the 
famous  laws  of  Oleron,  supposed  to  have  been  framed  by 
Queen  Elinor,  who  died  in  1202,  or  Richard  L,  who  died 
in  1199,  preceded  or  followed  the  Wisbuy  laws,  which 
they  closely  resemble,  is  a  mooted  point ;  but  apparently 
the  latter  are  the  older.2 

It  is  certain  that,  early  in  the  I3th  century,  the  Wisbuy 
laws  were  commonly  observed  in  the  eastern  ports  of  the 
Baltic,  which,  of  course,  could  not  have  been  the  case  had 
these  statutes  not  come  into  existence,  as  some  suppose, 
until  after  the  rebuilding  of  the  walls  of  the  city  in  1288. 
Furthermore,  recent  research  has  made  it  plain  that  the 
Wisbuy  code  was  a  composite  structure  built  up  gradually 
over  a  long  period,  during  which  not  only  additions  but 
omissions  were  made;  many  features,  at  one  time  in  full 
force  and  regarded  as  wise  and  proper,  becoming  obsolete 
or  out  of  harmony  with  changed  customs  or  more  mode- 
rate notions  of  wrongs  and  remedies.3  The  code  as  it  ap- 
pears to-day  is  extremely  brief,4  and  thus  bears  on  its  face 
the  evidence  that  it  is  probably  merely  a  residuum,  and 
by  no  means  inclusive  of  all  the  precepts  which  at  various 
times  formed  parts  of  it. 

1  Olans  Magnus,  cit.  sup.,  says  :  "The  laws  for  sea  affairs  and  the  de- 
cisions of  all  controversies  severally,  far  and  wide,  as  far  as  the  pillars  of 
Hercules  and  the  utmost  Scythian  Sea,  are  fetched  from  thence,  and  are 
observed  ;  being  given,  that  all  things  may  be  done  in  a  due  tranquillity 
that  may  be  fit  and  agreeing  to  peaceable  commerce." 

2Beckmann:  Hist,  of  Inventions,  London,  1817,  i.,  387.  Parsons: 
Treatise  on  Maritime  Law,  Boston,  1859,  10,  inclines  to  the  opposite  view. 

8  The  Black  Book  of  the  Admiralty,  London,  1876.  (Monumenta  Juri- 
dica.)  Introduction. 

4  Ibid.     Also  Appendix  to  Peter's  Admiralty  Reports. 


THE   FINNS   AND   LAPPS.  137 

Here  then  was  a  great  central  mart  or  exchange, 
whither  came  the  ships  and  mariners  of  all  nations,  save 
only  the  Saracens ;  for  the  infidel  vessels  would  have 
found  scant  welcome  at  the  hands  of  the  newly-converted 
Northmen.  Here  was  a  source  of  sea  law  observed  by  all 
Christian  sea-faring  peoples.  And  here,  if  anywhere,  was 
the  focal  point  from  which  it  may  be  presumed  would  be 
radiated  any  new  item  of  knowledge,  of  interest  and  im- 
portance to  the  maritime  world. 

Among  the  ships  which  came  to  Wisbuy  were  those  of 
the  Finns  and  Lapps  ;  and  among  the  northern  tribes,  the 
Finns  and  Lapps  differed  from  all  the  others  in  character 
and  customs.  Unlike  their  neighbors,  they  belong  to  that 
great  Ugric  nomad  race  which  includes  the  Mongolians, 
Etrurians  and  Magyars.  Their  early  history  is  exceed- 
ingly obscure.  While  the  Lapps  are  commonly  regarded 
as  members  of  the  Finnic  branch  of  the  Turanian  family, 
some  ethnologists  consider  them  to  be  the  original  inhabi- 
tants of  the  country  now  known  as  Finland,  and  to  have 
occupied  it  before  the  irruption  into  Europe  of  the  Asiatic 
hordes  which  destroyed  the  Roman  Empire.  The  Finns, 
on  this  theory,  starting  from  the  foot  of  the  Ural  Moun- 
tains, came  to  Bulgaria  and  Hungary,  and  being  driven 
thence  in  the  7th  century,  made  their  way  to  the  Baltic 
provinces,  whence  they  drove  the  Lapps  to  the  extreme 
north.  Other  hypotheses  deny  the  close  connection  thus 
predicated  between  the  Finns  and  Magyars,  and  place 
the  migration  of  the  former  northward  at  a  far  earlier 
date,  while  extending  the  area  of  their  settlement  over  a 
large  part  of  Sweden  and  Norway,  whence  they  were  ex- 
pelled by  the  Scandinavian  Teutons  and  forced  into  the 
confines  of  present  Finland. 

In  the  I2th  century,  at  the  instigation  of  the  Pope,  Eric 
IX.,  King  of  Sweden,  undertook  to  introduce  Christianity 
among  them;  a  series  of  crusades  followed  during  the 
next  two  hundred  years,  with  the  result  of  subduing 
the  Finns,  though  not  of  conquering  them,  and  with  the 


138         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

further  consequence  of  making  their  peculiar  customs  and 
national  life  far  better  known  to  their  northern  neighbors.1 

During  the  Middle  Ages  the  territory  about  the  Baltic 
occupied  by  the  Finns,  the  Ksthonians  and  the  Lapps, 
was  regarded  as  the  peculiar  home  and  nursery  of  sor- 
cerers, whither  people  from  every  land,  even  from  distant 
Greece  and  Spain,  resorted  for  instruction  or  for  special  aid. 
The  Esthonians  looked  upon  the  Finns  as  greater  sorcer- 
ers than  themselves,  and  the  Finns  in  turn  considered  the 
Lapps  their  superiors  in  magic  skill.  But  the  old  writers 
always  single  out  the  Finns  by  name,  as  the  typical  wizards. 
The  mediaeval  Finns  were  a  gloomy,  earnest  people,  show- 
ing on  their  faces  the  marks  of  their  Tartar  relation- 
ship, and  retaining  in  their  families  the  same  distinctive 
appellations  as  the  far-distant  Chinese.  In  their  wander- 
ings from  the  cradle  of  the  human  race  in  Asia,  perhaps, 
they  brought  with  them  the  Runic  characters  in  which 
are  written  the  ancient  inscriptions  found  both  in  the 
north  of  Europe  and  on  the  Tartar  steppes;  but  in  common 
with  the  other  northern  nations,  their  traditions  came 
down  by  word  of  mouth  and  in  the  songs  of  the  Skalds 
and  minstrels.  They  were  the  earliest  iron  workers  in 
Northern  Europe,  and  the  Finnish  swords  anciently  had  a 
reputation  equal  to  that  which  the  famous  blades  of  Toledo 
long  afterwards  acquired.  Their  great  epic,  the  Kalevala, 
a  composite  structure  of  no  definite  date,  shows  them  also 
to  have  been  skilled  as  ship-builders,  and  in  its  descriptions 
of  battles  and  forays  it  is  not  unlike  the  Anglo-Saxon 
poem  of  Beowulf,  or  the  Norse  Eddas  and  Sagas;  but  its 
chief  characteristic  is  its  wild  and  gloomy  legends  of 
sorcery  and  magic. 

In  all  forms  of  witchcraft  the  Finns  were  regarded  as 
masters.  They  devised  the  magic  runes  and  spells  which 
overcame  the  enemy  while  protecting  the  wearer,  the 
impenetrable  garments,  the  charmed  weapons,  and  raised 

1  Vincent:  Norsk,  Lapp  and  Finn.  N.  Y.,  1881.  Peschel:  The  Races 
of  Man.  N.  Y.,  1876.  Sinicox:  Primitive  Civilization,  cit.  sup. 


FINNISH  SORCERY.  139 

the  ghosts  of  the  drowned.1  They  practiced  soothsaying 
as  a  means  of  profit.  Their  traffic  in  charms  was  chiefly 
with  the  sailor.  To  him  they  sold  weather,  good  and  bad, 
and  bags  of  wind  ("as  Lapland  witches  pottled  air") 
which  would  waft  his  ship  to  the  desired  haven,  or  send 
that  of  his  enemy  to  disaster.2 

The  Finn  country,  with  its  many  inlets  and  sounds,  had 
an  extended  sea-coast,  so  that  the  early  inhabitants  be- 
came navigators  from  the  beginning  of  their  settlement. 
Therein  they  differed  from  the  Mongols,  who,  as  I  have 
stated,  remained  for  a  long  period  dwellers  inland.  If 
we  may  conjecture  knowledge  of  magnetic  polarity  and 
of  the  guidance  of  the  lodestone,  existing  in  the  ancient 
people  of  Central  Asia,  whence  both  the  Finns  and  the 
Mongols  sprang,  it  is  as  reasonable  to  infer  persistence  of 
the  same  knowledge  among  the  Finns  as  among  the 
Chinese;  although,  as  I  have  also  remarked,  the  unchang- 
ing nature  of  Chinese  customs  would  render  the  conditions 
for  its  preservation  more  favorable  in  the  Middle  Kingdom 
than  in  the  Northern  land.  In  such  a  country  as  Finland, 
however,  the  need  for  the  land  compass  would  quickly 
disappear;  for  there  long  land  journeys  were  both  unneces- 

1Olaus  Magnus:  Hist,  de  Gent.  Sept.,  Rome,  1555,  lib.  iii.,  c.  xvi. 
See  Lea:  History  of  the  Inquisition,  N.  Y.,  1888,  iii.;  Peschel:  The  Races 
of  Man,  N.  Y.,  1876. 

2  The  nautical  superstition  as  to  the  weather-controlling  power  of  the 
Finns  is  still  alive  (see  Bassett :  Phantoms  of  the  Sea,  Chicago,  1892). 
Dana,  in  his  Two  Years  before  the  Mast,  tells  of  the  crew  ascribing  per- 
sistent headwinds  to  the  presence  of  a  Finn  on  board,  whom  the  captain 
proceeded  to  imprison  for  his  refusal  to  provide  good  weather.  "The 
Finn  held  out  for  a  day  and  a-half,  when  he  could  not  stand  it  any 
longer,  and  did  something  or  other  which  brought  the  wind  round  again, 
and  they  let  him  up."  The  "  Rooshian  Finn  "  is  a  frequent  character 
in  the  forecastle  yarns  of  the  United  States  navy  ;  and  that  he  can  alter 
the  wind  by  sticking  his  knife  into  the  mast  is  firmly  believed  by  the  old 
man-of-war's  man.  Whether  any  possible  connection  exists  between  the 
insertion  of  the  knife  for  this  purpose,  and  the  savage  Norse  punishment 
also  involving  driving  the  knife  into  the  mast,  noted  hereafter  as  a  pen- 
alty for  tampering  with  the  compass,  may  interest  those  curious  in  in- 
vestigating such  matters. 


140         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

sary  and  arduous,  the  sea  when  open  furnishing  a  far 
easier  road,  while  no  elaborate  buildings  or  engineering 
works  called  for  employment  of  the  needle  in  establishing 
sites  or  in  determining  alignments.  On  the  other  hand, 
adaptation  of  the  guiding  needle  (assuming  it  to  be  known) 
to  marine  use  would  be  not  at  all  unlikely.  While,  there- 
fore, on  the  one  hand,  and  for  ethnological  reasons,  it  may 
be  possible  to  assume  knowledge  of  magnetic  polarity  to 
have  existed  among  the  Finns  and  Mongols,  and  that  both 
may  have  availed  themselves  of  it  in  migrating,  the  one 
people  northward  and  the  other  eastward;  on  the  other 
hand  and  for  geographical  reasons,  the  probabilities  point 
more  strongly  to  the  Finns,  seamen  and  dwellers  by  the 
sea,  having  discovered  the  sea  use  of  the  magnetic  needle 
rather  than  the  agricultural,  inland-Jiving,  sea-dreading 
Chinese. 

Bringing  together  now  the  conclusions  which  have  been 
thus  far  suggested,  we  have  found  first,  that  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  appearance  of  the  compass  among  the 
European  sailors  all  indicate  a  radiation,  so  to  speak,  of 
intelligence  concerning  it  from  some  central  point  or  focus  : 
second,  that  at  about  this  time  the  city  of  Wisbuy,  on  the 
Island  of  Gottland,  in  the  Baltic  sea,  was  the  great  gather- 
ing-place and  mart  for  all  sea-faring  men,  and  that  thither 
came  Goths,  Swedes,  Russians,  Danes,  Angles,  Scots, 
Flemings,  Vandals,  Saxons,  Spaniards  and  Finns:  and 
third,  that  a  knowledge  of  magnetic  polarity  may  be 
more  reasonably  conjectured  to  have  existed  among  the 
Finns  rather  than  among  any  of  the  other  peoples  named, 
because  of  the  race  affiliation  of  the  Finns  and  their  pecu- 
liar skill  in  sea-sorcery.  It  may  readily  be  imagined  that  if 
they  possessed  in  the  needle  or  stone  a  charm  which  would 
guide  a  ship  from  haven  to  haven,  even  in  the  narrow 
seas,  how  mysterious  such  a  talisman  would  seem  to  the 
ever  superstitious  mariner,  and  how  eagerly  he  would  seek 
to  obtain  it  and  how  quickly  the  tidings  of  it  would  spread 
throughout  all  the  fleets  of  the  western  world.  Nor  is 


AN   ANCIENT   FINNISH   COMPASS.  141 

direct  proof  of  such  possession  wholly  wanting.  A  single 
Finnish  compass  has  been  discovered  for  which  the  people 
claim  great  antiquity,  the  card  or  scale  of  which  is  marked 
for  a  latitude  where  the  sunrise  and  sunset  at  the  summer 
and  winter  solstices  differ  by  sixty  degrees:1  this  condition, 
curiously  enough,  being  found  along  parallel  49°  20'  N., 
which  crosses  Asia  at  the  region  which  was  the  cradle  of 
primitive  civilizations,  and  from  which  began  the  wan- 
derings of  the  great  family  to  which  both  Finns  and  Mon- 
gols belong.2 

A  source  from  which  knowledge  of  the  mariner's  com- 
pass may  have  come  to  Wisbuy,  is  thus  found  in  its 
possible  Finnish  origin.  How  the  Finns,  if  they  had  the 
secret,  came  to  part  with  it — whether  it  was  forced  from 
them  by  their  Swedish  masters,  or  whether  they  yielded  it 
up  for  the  benefit  of  mankind  in  general,  under  the  exhor- 
tations of  good  St.  Henry,  the  English  bishop,  who 
entered  their  country  in  the  train  of  Eric,  or  whether  they 
bartered  it  with  other  mariners  at  Wisbuy,  until  all  the 
world  came  to  know  of  it — is  a  matter  of  surmise  with 
which  we  are  less  concerned  than  we  are  with  finding  cor- 
roboration  of  the  conjecture  that  from  the  great  maritime 
exchange  in  the  Baltic  came  the  intelligence  which 
Neckam  first  recorded. 

The  ancient  sea  laws  of  Wisbuy — as  I  have  said — regu- 
lated rights  and  duties  on  the  high  sea,  and  therefore  dealt 
with  nautical  crimes  and  offenses.  Of  these  none  is  more 
heinous  than  to  falsify  the  compass,  for  as  every  one 
knows,  upon  the  accuracy  of  that  instrument  the  safety  of 

lNouvelles  Annales  des  Voyages.  Paris,  1823,  vol.  xvii.,  414.  The 
card  instead  of  being  divided  into  quadrants  N.  S.  E.  and  W.  has  its  four 
cardinal  points  60°  to  the  east  and  west  of  North,  and  two  60°  to  the  east 
and  west  of  South  :  the  first  two  marking  sunrise  and  sunset  at  the  sum- 
mer solstice,  and  the  last  two  the  same  at  the  winter  solstice. 

3  This  region  coincides  closely  with  that  in  which  Bailly  conceived  a 
prehistoric  people  of  high  civilization  to  have  arisen  and  from  which  it 
migrated.  (Lettres  sur  1'Origine  des  Sciences.  Paris,  1777.)  See  also 
Ency.  Brit.,  7th  ed. 


142         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

the  ship,  and  of  all  the  lives  she  carries,  directly  depends. 
Even  a  slight  error  in  its  indication  may  lead  the  vessel 
far  out  of  her  course  or  into  fatal  perils.  That  this  must 
have  been  perceived  by  the  first  sailors  who  used  it,  is 
altogether  probable;  indeed,  we  can  easily  imagine  their 
terror  and  apprehension,  when  they  found  themselves  out 
of  sight  of  land  and  the  familiar  Pole  star  obscured  by 
clouds,  relying  solely  upon  the  pointing  of  the  little 
needle,  quivering  in  its  bowl  of  water,  to  show  them 
the  way.  Wreckers  and  pirates  in  mediaeval  times  were 
common,  and  when  the  sea-villains  learned  how  implicit 
the  reliance  was  upon  the  compass,  and  how  by  slightly 
falsifying  it  they  might  bring  a  richly-laden  craft  upon 
the  rocks  and  so  into  their  toils,  opportunities  for  this 
mode  of  plying  their  trade  quickly  revealed  themselves. 
Obviously,  it  was  much  easier  to  conspire  with  the  crew, 
or  to  send  one  of  their  own  stripe  on  board  in  the  guise  of 
an  honest  seaman,  to  tamper  with  the  needle,  and  so  bring 
the  ship  to  wreck  in  some  previously-determined  region, 
than  to  seek  to  capture  her  in  the  open  fight  for  which  all 
vessels  then  sailed  prepared.  Therefore,  as  by  common 
consent,  all  sea-faring  men  regarded  falsification  of  the 
compass  as  an  offense,  worthy  of  the  severest  punishment. 
Tampering  with  the  compass,  moreover,  in  those  days 
was  supposed  to  be  very  easy,  and  no  doubt  many  an  un- 
fortunate sailor  lost  his  life  under  the  charge  of  so  doing 
when  in  fact  he  was  innocent.  The  lodestone  (with 
which  the  needle  was  rubbed)  was  then  supposed  to  be 
affected  by  influences  which  are  really  destitute  of  the 
slightest  effect  upon  it.  Among  the  superstitions  relating 
to  it  none,  for  example,  was  more  common  than  the  be- 
lief that  its  attractive  power  could  be  destroyed  or  weak- 
ened by  the  touch,  or  even  the  odor,  of  onions  or  of  garlic. 
As  Neckam  notes,  the  proximity  of  the  diamond  was 
supposed  to  have  a  like  effect;  but  diamonds  were  not 
ordinarily  in  the  possession  of  mariners,  while  the  odorous 
vegetables  were,  and  so  much  was  their  effect  feared  that 


THE  GARLIC   MYTH.  143 

Baptista  Porta J  expressly  ridicules  the  delusion  prevailing 
even  in  his  time  which  caused  mariners,  when  in  charge 
of  the  lodestone,  to  avoid  eating  onions  or  garlic,  which 
not  only  may  "deprive  the  stone  of  its  virtue,  but,  by 
weakening  it,  prevent  them  from  perceiving -their  correct 
course."  So  potent  was  this  garlic  myth  that  it  was  re- 
peated steadily  for  fifteen  hundred  years.  "I  cannot 
think,"  observes  one  philosopher  of  the  lyth  century,2 
"that  the  ancient  sages  would  write  so  confidently  of  that 
which  they  had  no  experience  of,  being  a  thing  so  obvious 
and  easy  to  try:  therefore  I  suppose  they  had  a  stronger 
kind  of  Garlick  than  with  us."  It  began  with  Pliny,  and 
came  down  by  way  of  Solinus,  Ptolemy,  Plutarch,  Al- 
bertus  Magnus,  Matthiolus,  Ruetis,  Langius,  Marbodaeus, 
and  the  Arabian  physicians  and  philosophers.  True, 
Pietro  of  Abano  first  contradicted  it  before  1316  and 
Cardan3  followed  in  1550;  nevertheless,  the  vitality  of  the 
notion*  not  only  survived  these  attacks,  but  attained  such 
vigor  that  when  Philip  Melanchthon,  the  great  theologian 
of  the  Reformation,  undertook  to  write  a  book  on  Phy- 
sics,5 in  1575,  this  same  delusion  is  the  only  phenomenon 
concerning  the  magnet  which  he  mentions;  and  he  in- 
troduces it  as  an  illustration  of  an  accidental  effect.  It 
got  its  quietus  in  1646  at  the  hands  of  that  genial  and 
witty  iconoclast,  Sir  Thomas  Browne,6  who  says  "for  an 
iron  wire  heated  red  hot  and  quenched  in  the  juice  of  the 

1  Magia  Naturalia,  1589,  Lib.  vii.,  c.  48. 

2  Ross  :  Arcana,  192.  3  De  Subtilitate,  lib.  vii.,  474. 

*  Numerous  theories  have  been  evolved  to  explain  the  origin  of  this 
fiction.  The  most  ingenious  is  that  noted  by  Bertelli  in  his  Memoirs  of 
Peregrinus  (Mem.  ii.,  p.  39).  He  says  that  the  passage  in  Pliny's  Nat. 
History,  "  Ferrum  ad  se  trahente  magnete  lapide  et  alio  (theamede) 
rtirsus  abigente  a  sese,"  is  given  in  some  codices  so  that  "alio"  reads 
"  allio,"  thus  transforming  "other"  into  "garlic."  This  hypothesis  re- 
lieves Pliny  of  responsibility  for  the  error,  and  places  it  upon  some  un- 
known transcriber. 

5  Initia  Doctrinse  Physicse.     Wittenberg,  1575,  221. 

6  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica,  ii.,  iii. 


144         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

garlick  doth  notwithstanding  contract  a  vert  Lei  ty  from  the 
earth  and  attracteth  trfe  southern  point  of  the  needle.  If 
also  the  tooth  of  lodestor^e  Ipe  covered  and  stuck  in  garlick, 
it  will  notwithstanding  attract:  and  needles  excited  and 
fixed  in  garlick  until  they  begin  to  rust  do  yet  retain  their 
attractive  and  polary  respects."  And  Sir  Vhomas  well 
knew  whereof  he  spoke,.,  for  he  had  tried  actual  experi- 
ments with  lodestone  and  garlic,  and  wrote  down  what  he 
saw:  wherein  he  differed  from  his  learned  predecessors 
who  merely  commented,  with  more  or  less  profundity, 
upon  one  another's  speculations. 

To  return  now  to  the  Laws  of  Wisbuy  :  From  what  has 
been  said  concerning  the  dangers  attending  the  falsifica- 
tion of  the  compass,  it  may  easily  be  inferred  that  in  any 
code  prescribing  penalties  for  maritime  offences,  would 
appear  a  prohibition  of  the  crime,  and  provision  for 
punishment  of  the  criminal.  If  in  the  old  Wisbuy 
statutes  such  a  law  appears,  then  the  existence  and  use  of 
the  compass  is  of  course  established  as  of  an  earlier  date 
than  their  compilation.  Now,  if  we  may  credit  Olaus 
Magnus,  writing  before  1555,  there  was  in  the  ancient 
code  just  such  a  provision,  and  he  gives  it  because  it  is 
still  in  force  in  his  own  day.  It  is  as  follows: 

4 'Whoever,  being  moved  by  sedition,  shall  menace  the 
master  or  pilot  of  a  ship  with  the  sword,  or  shall  presiime 
to  interfere  with  the  nautical  gnomon  or  compass,  and, 
especially,  shall  falsify  the  part  of  the  lodestone  upon 
which  the  guidance  of  all  may  depend,  or  shall  commit 
like  abominable  crimes  in  the  ship  or  elsewhere,  shall,  if 
his  life  be  spared,  be  punished  by  having  the  hand  which 
he  most  uses  fastened,  by  a  dagger  or  knife  thrust  through 
it,  to  the  mast  or  principal  timber  of  the  ship,  to  be  with- 
drawn only  by  tearing  it  free." 

The  savagely  cruel  character  of  the  penalty  tends  to 
show  its  antiquity,  and  affords  abundant  reason  for  its 
abandonment  as  people  became  more  civilized.  But 
beyond  this  the  language  used  seems  to  draw  a  distinction 


THE   PENALTY   FOR   FALSIFYING  THE  COMPASS.      145 

between  the  compass  needle  and  the  lodestone ;  a  dis- 
tinction winch,  as  I  have  explained,  obtained  in  the 
early  compass,  but  which  had  long  since  ceased  to  exist  in 
the  time  of  Magnus.  Observe  also  that  it  is  the  lodestone 
of  which  falsification  is  especially  feared,  because  it  was 
supposed  that  if  the  stone  were  wrong,  then  the  needle 
rubbed  by  it  would  also  be  wrong.  And  this  accords  with 
the  prevalent  idea  before  mentioned,  that  the  lodestone 
power  could  be  annulled,  as  by  garlic.  Thus,  the  Wis- 
buy  statute  was  undoubtedly  framed  under  the  common 


THE  PUNISHMENT  OF  THE  FALSIFIER  OF  THE  COMPASS.1 

belief  that  tjie  falsification  could  be  very  easily  accom- 
plished; and  this  was  true,  for  the  perpetrator,  for  ex- 
ample, might  rub  the  needle  with  the  lodestone  so  as  to 
reverse  its  polarity,  or  so  as  greatly  to  diminish  its  direct- 
ive tendency.  In  whatever  way  the  result  was  actually 
produced  there  was  the  garlic  or  diamond  theory  which 
would  suffice  to  account  for  it. 

The  facts  which  point  to  the  European  invention  of  the 
mariner's  compass,  may  now  be  recapitulated  as  follows: 

1  From  Olaus  Magnus'  History  of  the  Northern  Nations,  Ed.  of  1555. 
The  old  engraving,  besides  showing  the  compass-falsifier  with  the  knite 
thrust  through  his  hand  and  into  the  mast,  illustrates  the  punishments 
of  "keel-hauling"  and  throwing  the  criminal  overboard,  which  were 
inflicted  for  mutiny  and  treason. 
IO 


146         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

A  description  of  the  instrument  appears  for  the  first  time 
in  Neckam's  treatise,  written  toward  the  end  of  the  i2th 
century.  The  nature  of  this  description  is  such  as  to  make 
it  clear  that  the  writer  is  not  referring  to  something  of 
his  own  devising,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to  a  contrivance 
which  has  then  been  known  to  sailors  for  some  indefinite 
period.  So  many  discoveries  concerning  the  magnet  are 
necessarily  involved  in  it,  moreover,  as  to  justify  the  pre- 
sumption that  it  is  the  product  of  evolution  and  of  many 
minds.  But,  neither  in  the  writings  of  William  Appulus, 
nor  in  the  Bestiary  of  Phillippe  de  Thaun,  is  there  any 
evidence  of  similar  knowledge;  although  it  is  hardly  sup- 
posable  that  de  Thaun,  especially,  would  have  failed  to 
mention  it  somewhere  in  his  long  categories,  had  he  pos- 
sessed any  such  information.  This  places  the  probable 
time  of  the  appearance  of  the  compass  in  Europe  at  about 
the  middle  of  the  I2th  century. 

After  this  description  of  the  compass  appeared  in  an 
English  work,  descriptions  of  it  in  the  literature  of  other 
nations  followed  so  rapidly  as  leave  their  true  chronologi- 
cal sequence  in  doubt,  and  under  conditions  which  not 
only  preclude  the  idea  that  the  writers  got  their  informa- 
tion from  Neckam,  but  also  that  of  the  transmission  of 
such  knowledge  seriatim  from  people  to  people.  This 
suggests  the  radiation  of  the  intelligence  to  the  world  from 
some  central  focal  point.  Such  a  point  is  found  in  Wisbuy 
on  the  Island  of  Gottland,  then  a  great  trading  place  for 
sea-faring  people.  Hither  the  knowledge  may  have  been 
brought  by  the  wonder-working  Finns.  Finally,  the 
ancient  sea  laws  of  Wisbuy,  dating  from  the  time  of  the 
first  appearance  of  the  compass  before  noted,  contain  a 
direct  provision  against  tampering  with  the  instrument, 
and  impose  a  terrible  penalty  for  so  doing. 

We  may  imagine  that  the  lodestone  fell  at  once  into  its 
proper  place  in  nautical  employment.  It  belonged  to  the 
category  of  appliances  used  by  the  pilots  to  make  their 
crude  observations.  It  was  not  especially  exposed  to  the 


THE   MEDIEVAL  COMPASS.  147 

landsman's  gaze,  being  used  only  at  sea,  and  then  as  occa- 
sion required.  Thus  it  might  perhaps  escape  chronicle, 
until  some  one,  like  Neckam,  intending  to  write  an  ency- 
clopaedia, instituted  an  inquisition  into  things  maritime 
sufficiently  minute  to  bring  the  device  to  light.  If 
Neckam' s  description  be  re-read  in  the  light  of  this  hypo- 
thesis, it  seems  to  be  framed  on  just  such  broad  lines  as 
would  naturally  be  chosen  by  any  one  setting  forth,  for 
the  first  time,  a  (to  him)  new  and  extraordinary  appliance. 
He  tells  simply  what  the  contrivance  does,  but  he  is  totally 
ignorant  why  it  so  acts,  and  of  the  long  series  of  discov- 
eries which  separates  it  from  the  magnetic  knowledge  of 
Isidore;  as  ignorant  as  were  the  sailors  in  the  English 
ships  who  came  into  the  English  harbors,  and  who  prob- 
ably told  him  just  what  they  knew  themselves,  and  no 
more 


t 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  thirteenth  century  found  ecclesiastical  authority 
sovereign  in  every  department  of  thought.  It  was  an 
offence  against  religion,  as  well  as  against  reason,  to  reject 
the  truth  ;  and  the  truth,  it  was  insisted,  was  in  the  dogmas 
which  the  Church  in  its  wisdom  had  arbitrarily  defined. 
The  members  of  a  university,  who  had  developed  a  spirit 
of  investigation,  found  it  sternly  repressed,  with  an  ad- 
monition "to  be  content  with  the  landmarks  of  science 
already  fixed  by  the  fathers,  to  have  due  fear  of  the  curse 
pronounced  against  him  who  removeth  his  neighbor's 
landmark,  and  not  to  incur  the  blame  of  innovation  or  pre- 
sumption." In  vain  did  the  Italians,  especially,  show  an 
intrepid  desire  to  pursue  the  truth,  or  reveal  prophetic 
visions  of  discovery.  "Who  shall  say,"  asks  Ranke, 
"whither  this  tendency  w^ould  have  led?  But  the  Church 
marked  out  a  line  which  they  were  not  to  overstep ;  woe 
to  him  who  ventured  to  pass  it  I"1 

The  century  had  not  far  advanced,  however,  when  the 
first  faint  signs  of  emancipation  of  the  intellect  from  theo- 
logical fetters  began  to  show  themselves,  although  the 
completion  of  the  enlargement  was  still  many  a  score  of 
years  distant.  The  work  of  scholasticism  as  the  "solvent 
of  theology"  became  manifest,  while  scholasticism  itself 
commenced  to  pass  into  mysticism.  As  the  military  and 
clerical  power  started  upon  its  decline,  so  the  industrial 
and  scientific  forces  of  the  world  began  once  more  an  up- 
ward course. 

The  works  of  Aristotle  and  the  Alexandrians  had  now 

1Whewell:  Hist.  Indue.  Sciences,  ii.;  Tennemann:  Geschichte  der  Phil- 
osophic, viii.;  Ranke:  History  of  the  Popes,  i. 

(148) 


WILLIAM  THE  CLERK.  149 

been  given  new  life  through  the  commentaries  of  the 
Greeks  and  the  Arabs,  and  were  being  eagerly  restudied 
by  those  who  had  hitherto  denounced  them  as  the  ravings 
of  pagans  and  infidels.  The  gathering  of  physical  facts 
was  gradually  becoming  regarded  as  an  objective  proceed- 
ing, and  philosophy  began  its  movement  away  from  the 
subjective  methods  of  theology. 

While  the  philosophers  and  the  theologians  were  pursu- 
ing endless  disputations  resulting  from  these  changing 
conditions,  the  imaginative  spirit  of  Christendom  burst 
forth  almost  unchecked.  The  new  language  of  the  Nor- 
mans yielded  the  new  romance,  and  chivalry  and  love  re- 
placed piracy  and  murder  or  the  dull  category  of  saintly 
virtues,  as  the  burden  of  the  poems  which  the  jongleurs 
recited,  or  the  songs  which  the  trouveres  sang. 

Among  these  new  singers  was  one  little  known  to  fame, 
but  still  the  most  prolific  of  all.  He  wrote  one  of  the 
Romances  of  the  Round  Table,  but,  like  some  few  others, 
his  muse  favored  subjects  of  a  religious  and  moral  char- 
acter rather  than  those  of  a  sprightly  or  amatory  turn. 
He  called  himself  William  the  Clerk,1  and  he  was  a  vassal 
of  Sire  Rauf  or  Raul,  who  fought  in  the  wars  of  Frederick 
I.  in  Italy  (1159  to  1177).  Robert  Wace,  the  most  emi- 
nent of  the  trouveres,  vouches  for  the  multiplicity  of  Wil- 
liam the  Clerk's  writings;  but  if,  as  seems  to  be  the  case, 
they  were  generally  of  the  stripe  of  the  rhymed  natural 
history  interspersed  with  moral  lessons  (Li  Bestiare  Divins), 
which  he  composed  by  order  of  Rauf,  whom  he  eulogizes 
in  a  fulsome  manner  through  thirty  verses,  we  need  waste 
no  regrets  over  their  loss.  In  fact,  William  has  spared  us 
that  trouble  by  himself  deploring  that  he  ever  wrote  them. 

1  Sur  un  MS.  du  Commencement  du  XlVme  Siecle,  etc.  Bulletin  du 
Bibliophile.  Paris,  Sept.,  1836.  D'Avezac :  Anciens  Temoignages  his- 
toriques  relatifs  a  la  Boussole.  Bull,  de  la  Soc.  Geog.,  10  Feb.,  1858. 
Jal :  Arche"ologie  Navale.  Paris,  1840,  208.  De  la  Rue  :  Essais  Hist, 
stir  les  Bardes,  les  Jongleurs  et  les  Trouveres.  Caen,  1834.  Wright : 
Biog.  Brit.  London,  1842,  vol.  ii.,  426. 


150         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

After  he  had  become  a  monk  he  made  atonement  by  in- 
forming mankind  that 

"William,  a  Norman  clerk  who  verses  strung 
In  flowing  numbers  of  the  Romance  tongue, 
Too  oft,  alas,  indulgent  his  refrain 
In  fable  foolish  and  in  legend  vain— 
Too  oft  he  sinned— and  him  may  God  forgive 
Who  loved  the  world,  and  in  it  loved  to  live."1 

Among  the  poetic  effusions  which  their  author  thus 
lamented  is  one  discovered  by  M.  Paul  in  Paris,  a  distin- 
guished French  antiquarian,  in  a  MS.  of  1329,  which  he 
attributes  unquestionably  to  William  the  Clerk.  It  is  en- 
titled lyove's  Complaint  (Complainte  d'Amour),  and  in  it 
the  poet,  after  comparing  his  inamorata  to  the  Pole  star  or 
Tramontane,  gives  the  following  description  of  the  com- 
pass.2 

"Such  of  Tramontane  the  guise 
Shining  blazing  in  the  skies. 
Who,  to  far  Venetia's  strand 
Greece  or  Acre,  Frisian  land, 
Wandering  sees  its  friendly  ray 
Pointing  out  the  hidden  way. 
Knows  it  faithful  guide  to  be 
O'er  the  bosom  of  the  sea. 
Whether  storm  vext  or  at  rest, 
Blow  the  north  wind  or  the  west. 

"When  before  the  northern  gale 
Flies  through  raging  waves,  the  sail, 
That  pure  beam  serene  and  clear, 
Saves  the  bark  from  danger  near. 
When  the  blackness  of  the  night 
Cloud-enshrouded  veils  its  light, 
Still  it  doth  a  virtue  own 
Drawing  iron  to  the  stone. 
Guiding  safely  those  who  roam, 
To  the  sweet  delights  of  home. 

1  The  free  translation  is  the  author's.     Wright,  T.:  Biog.  Brit,  cit.  sup. 

2  Author's  translation.    Bulletin  du  Bibliophile,  cit.  sup. 


WILLIAM  THE  CLERK.  151 

"Who  would  of  his  course  be  sure, 
When  the  clouds  the  sky  obscure, 
He  an  iron  needle  must 
In  the  cork  wood  firmly  thrust. 
Lest  the  iron  virtue  lack 
Rub  it  with  the  lodestone  black, 
In  a  cup  with  flowing  brim, 
Let  the  cork  on  water  swim. 
When  at  length  the  tremor  ends, 
Note  the  way  the  needle  tends; 
Though  its  place  no  eye  can  see — 
There  the  polar  star  will  be." 

This  is  apparently  the  first  attempt  to  account  for  the 
north  and  south  pointing  of  the  needle,  and  represents 
probably  the  generally-accepted  notion  of  the  time;  for  we 
can  hardly  imagine  the  poet  as  the  originator  of  it.  The 
reasoning  seems  to  have  been  that  the  needle  points  to  the 
star  because  it  has  been  rubbed  by  the  stone.  Therefore 
it  receives  a  virtue  from  the  stone.  Whence  does  the 
stone  get  its  virtue?  Clearly  from  the  Pole  star,  else  why 
should  the  needle  point  to  that  star  in  preference  to  any 
other  object  in  the  universe — say  the  moon. 

This  is  a  long  stride  ahead  in  scientific  reasoning,  in  that 
it  seeks  to  explain  a  natural  phenomenon  by  natural 
causes,  and  not  by  the  intervention  of  supernatural  ma- 
chinery, or  by  an  appeal  to  faith,  or  by  the  exercise  of 
dialectic  irigenuity.  Whether  the  hypothesis  be  right  or 
wrong  is  therefore  of  no  consequence;  it  was  an  effort  at 
straight  rectilinear  thought,  made  at  a  time  when  minds 
ran  around  in  small  circles;  and  as  such  it  denoted  pro- 
gress. It  was,  moreover,  encouraging  to  the  intellects 
who  had  begun  to  feel  the  influence  of  the  new  centrifugal 
force,  of  which  they  could  not  understand  the  meaning, 
pulling  them  out  of  their  little  orbits. 

While  William  the  Clerk  was  bewailing  the  shortcomings 
of  the  world  which  he  had  left,  the  world  in  turn — even  the 
Church  itself— was  scourging  the  iniquities  of  the  clergy.1 

aThe  Lateran  Council  of  1215.  See  Lea:  History  of  the  Inquisition', 
cit.  infra. 


152         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

"Thy  ministers  rob  here  and  murder  there, 
And  o'er  thy  sheep  a  wolf  has  shepherd's  care," 

sang  Walther  von  der  Vogelweide,  the  Minnesinger  of 
Germany:  and  the  troubadours  in  France  echo  the  same 
strain  in  even  fiercer  invective  under  the  Arabian  influence 
from  across  the  Pyrenees,  couching  their  denunciations  in 
the  new  and  flowing  rhythms  learned  from  the  same  source. 

Among  the  troubadours  was  Guyot  de  Provins,1  a  min- 
strel, who,  like  the  great  Minnesinger,  wandered  from 
court  to  court  singing  his  lays,  and  who  had  followed  the 
Templars  in  the  Crusades.  Becoming  tired  of  the  world, 
or,  perhaps,  his  world  tiring  of  him,  he  entered  the  Cis- 
tercian novitiate,  but  abandoned  that  order  in  favor  of  the 
Cluniacenses,  and  then  repented  his  choice  and  sought  to 
return  to  his  first  association.  The  result  was  an  increase 
in  the  jealousy  between  the  two  orders,  and  finally  a  trian- 
gular contest  in  which  Guyot  stood  aloof  and  poured  out 
upon  both  of  them  the  vials  of  his  wrathful  sarcasm  in  gall 
and  wormwood,  none  the  less  biting  because  of  his  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  monastic  secrets. 

The  principal  satire  written  by  Guyot  is  entitled 
"  Bible,"  as  common  a  name  for  productions  of  the  sort  as 
De  Natura  Rerum  was  for  encyclopaedic  treatises.  It  is 
a  long  poem  of  some  2,700  lines,  written  between  the  years 
1203  and  1208,  and  it  brings  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men 
under  the  lash,  beginning  with  monarchs  and  ending  with 
utheologues,  priests  and  physicians." 

The  second  book  is  devoted  to  the  clergy,  and  opens 
with  a  criticism  of  the  Pope  himself.  It  might  well  be 
supposed  that  such  startling  audacity  would  have  brought 
the  earthly  pilgrimage  of  the  writer  to  an  abrupt  conclu- 
sion ;  but  Guyot  was  speaking  only  the  popular  thought, 
and  other  troubadours — Pierre  Cardinal,2  for  example —  of 

1  Wolfart,  J.  F.:  Des  Guiot  von  Provins  bis  jetzt  bekannten  Dichtim- 
gen,  etc.     Halle,  1861. 
'Lea  H.  C.:  History  of  the  Inquisition,  N.  Y.,  1887,  i.,  55. 


GUYOT  DE   PROVINS.  153 

far  higher  rank  and  consequence  than  himself,  were  attack- 
ing Innocent  with  even  greater  rancor  and  openness.  The 
Pope  settled  most  of  these  scores  to  his  own  satisfaction, 
during  the  Albigensian  Crusade. 

Guyot's  onslaught  on  the  papacy  is  mildness  itself  com- 
pared with  his  vituperations  against  the  hierarchy  gener- 
ally, or  even  as  contrasted  with  the  poem  of  Pierre  Cardi- 
nal, who  openly  accused  the  Pope  of  betraying  his  sacred 
trust  and  "vending  his  pardon  briefs  from  cot  to  hall." 
He  merely  holds  up  the  Pole  star  as  an  example  of  con- 
stancy and  rectitude  for  papal  emulation,  but,  in  thus  doing, 
so  closely  copies  the  verses  of  William  the  Clerk  that 
before  we  know  it  we  are  laughing  at  the  grotesque  sub- 
stitution of  the  supreme  pontiff  for  the  fair  unknown  of 
the  subsequently  remorseful  monk. 

Guyot  begins  by  wishing  that  the  Pope  resembled  the 
Pole  star,  whereby  the  sailors  guide  their  course,  and 
which,  unlike  other  stars,  is  fixed  and  immovable;  which, 
of  course,  is  entirely  inoffensive,  except,  as  a  schoolman 
of  the  time  might  remark,  in  so  far  as  it  inferentially 
suggests  that  the  successor  of  St.  Peter  has  not  that  u  Pe- 
treity  "  which  is  the  rock  of  his  foundation.  Still  some 
change  had  to  be  made  in  language  originally  designed  to 
celebrate  the  young  woman  whose  brilliancy  and  attractive 
allurements  William  intended  the  Pole  star  to  typify. 
But  Guyot  tamely  follows  the  Clerk  of  Normandy,  drag- 
ging in  identically  the  same  description  of  the  compass, 
with  the  slight  addition  that  in  dark  weather  the  needle 
can  be  illuminated.  After  which  he  returns  to  the  Pope, 
and  wishes  him  to  be  beautiful  and  clear  like  the  star;  but 
as  he  leaves  out  the  whole  of  the  ingenious  theory  whereby 
William  connects  the  star  with  the  lodestone,  the  precise 
relation  of  the  Pope  to  the  compass  is  left  as  obscure  as 
Darwin's  famous  linkage  of  cats  and  red  clover  would  have 
been  had  the  great  naturalist  never  explained  it.1 

1  Guyot's  poem  has  been  so  frequently  published  during  the  last  cen- 
tury that  its  bibliography  is  now  quite  voluminous.  A  carefully  f  dited 


154         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Although  it  is  representative  of  the  temper  and  mode  of 
thought  of  the  times,  the  Bible  of  Guyot  would  scarcely 
merit  the  notice  here  given  it  were  it  not  constantly  re- 
ferred to  in  modern  literature  as  the  earliest  known  writ- 
ing on  the  compass.  It  has  frequently  also  been  made  the 
basis  for  the  claim  to  the  original  invention  of  that  instru- 
ment by  the  French.  Both  the  treatise  of  Neckam  and 
the  poem  ascribed  to  William  the  Clerk  are  in  all  prob- 
ability of  much  earlier  date,  while  the  signs  of  the  copyist 
are  certainly  more  apparent  in  the  imperfect  work  of  the 
troubadour  than  in  the  logically  complete  structure  of  the 
trouvere  monk. 

The  theory  to  which  William  the  Clerk  alludes  as  ex- 
plaining the  action  of  the  needle  soon  begins  to  assume 
definite  form,  and  align  itself  with  the  general  hypothesis 
of  magnetic  virtue  laid  down  by  Galen.  Thus  the  two 
lines  of  magnetic  discovery,  attractive  power  of  the  stone 
and  its  directive  tendency,  hitherto  merely  linked  by 
Neckam,  now  begin  to  coalesce.  uThe  magnet  is  found 
in  India,  and  draws  the  iron  to  it  by  a  certain  occult 
nature.  An  iron  needle,  after  it  has  touched  the  stone, 
always  turns  to  the  northern  star,  which  does  not  move 
around  the  axis  of  the  heavens  as  do  the  other  stars;  whence 
it  is  very  necessary  to  those  who  navigate  the  sea,"  '  writes 
Cardinal  de  Vitry  in  1218,  thus  bringing  the  statement  of 
both  phenomena  side  by  side  in  a  single  paragraph. 

Still  more  suggestive  are  the  lines  of  Guido  Guinicelli, 
the  first  of  Italian  poets  who  embodied  in  verse  the  subtle- 
ties of  philosophy,  and  whose  fame  Dante  has  recorded  : 

text  appears  in  Wol fart's  work  (cit.  sup.),  and  in  Fabliaux  et  Contes  des 
Poetes  Fran£ois  des  xi.,  xii.,  xiii.,  xiv.  and  xvme  siecles.  Nouv.  ed. 
Paris,  1808,  pp.  327-8.  Bertelli,  in  his  Memoria  sopra  P.  Peregrinus,  59, 
gives  the  poem,  and  a  partial  bibliography  in  a  foot-note.  An  English 
translation  of  it  appears  in  Lorimer's  Essay  on  Magnetism.  London, 
1795- 
1  Historiae  Hierosolimitanae,  cap.  89. 


THE   MAGNETIC   FIELD  OF   FORCE.  155 

"Kindles  in  noble  heart  the  fire  of  love 

As  hidden  virtue  in  the  precious  stone; 
This  virtue  comes  not  from  the  stars  above 

Till  round  it  the  ennobling  sun  has  shone; 
But  when  his  powerful  blaze 

Has  drawn  forth  what  is  vile,  the  stars  impart 
Strange  virtue  in  their  rays; 

And  thus  when  nature  doth  create  the  heart 
Noble  and  pure  and  high, 

Like  virtue  from  the  star,  love  comes  from  woman's  eye.1 

Even  more  closely  knit  are  the  facts  in  the  following 
stanza  by  the  same  poet,  for  here  the  traditional  magnetic 
mountains  once  more  come  to  light — 

In  what  strange  regions  'neath  the  polar  star 
May  the  great  hills  of  massy  lodestone  rise, 
Virtue  imparting  to  the  ambient  air 
To  draw  the  stubborn  iron;  while  afar 
From  that  same  stone,  the  hidden  virtue  flies 
To  turn  the  quivering  needle  to  the  Bear, 
In  splendor  blazing  in  the  northern  skies.2 

This  adds  another  step  to  William  the  Clerk's  original 
theory.  The  Pole  star  communicates  its  virtue  to  the 
magnetic  mountains,  and  from  the  magnetic  mountains 
comes  the  lodestone  wherewith  the  needle  is  rubbed.  But, 
for  another  reason,  this  stanza  is  very  curious,  in  that  it 
shows  an  early  form  of  the  hypothesis  of  the  field  of  force 
surrounding  the  lodestone,  in  which  field  the  power  or 
strength  or  virtue  of  the  stone  is  exerted.  Note  that  the 
virtue  is  imparted  "to  the  ambient  air  to  draw  the  stub- 
born iron."  The  idea  of  action  at  a  distance — of  the 
magnet  influencing  its  armature  through  no  material 
bond — was  not  so  thinkable  to  the  poets  and  commen- 
tators of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth,  as  it  afterwards 
became  to  the  natural  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries.  Not  long  after  Guinicelli's  poem 

1  Longfellow's  translation:  Poets  and  Poetry  of  Europe,  511. 

2  Author's  translation.     Ginguene*  :  Hist.  Litt  de  1' Italic,  i.  413. 


156         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

appeared,  Guido  delle  Colonne '  of  Messina  expressed  the 
same  thought — 

"  It  is  a  secret  of  the  lodestone, 
That  to  itself  the  iron  'twill  not  draw 
Unless  the  mediate  air  consent ; 
Although  it  hath  the  nature  of  a  stone, 
Yet  of  its  nature  stones  do  not  partake 
For  lack  of  this  same  strange  capacity." 

This  idea  that  the  intervening  medium  takes  part  in  the 
phenomenon  of  magnetic  attraction  was  one  which  did  not 
replace,  but  supplemented  the  prevailing  doctrine  that  the 
stone  operated  solely  by  reason  of  its  occult  virtue.  It 
was  suggested  in  the  poem  of  L,ucretius  and  favored  by  the 
greatest  of  the  Arabian  philosophers,  Averrhoes,2  who  also 
explained  the  attraction  of  rubbed  amber  for  chaff  by  the 
same  conception.  A  century  later  it  was  adopted  by  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas.3  Certainly  a  physical  hypothesis  which 
enlisted  the  concurring  advocacy  of  the  most  eminent  of 
Christian  and  Pagan  commentators,  and  which  appeared, 
ostensibly  at  least,  to  rest  upon  the  principles  of  Aristotle, 
whom  the  world  then  regarded  as  the  fountain-head  of 
philosophy,  could  have  had  no  stronger  support. 

The  references  to  the  lodestone  and  to  the  compass  now 
begin  to  multiply  rapidly  in  all  classes  of  literature. 
Oautier  d'Epinois,4  in  1245,  writes  amatory  verses  compar- 
ing the  object  of  his  affection,  not  to  the  Pole  star,  as 
William  the  Clerk  had  done,  but  to  the  magnet,  and  the 
whole  world  to  the  needle  which  turns  in  response  to  such 
transcendent  attractions.  Matthew  Paris,5  perhaps  also 

1  Author's  translation.  Nannucci:  Man.  della  Lett.  Florence,  1856, 
8 r.  Bertelli:  Mem.  sopra  Peregrinus,  35. 

'Colliget,  V. 

8  In  Phys.,  VII.,  lect.  3.  See,  also,  Albertus  Magnus  :  Phys.,  lib.  VIII., 
tract.  2. 

*D'Avezac:  Aper£us  Hist  sur  la  Boussole.  Bull.  Soc.  Geog.,  20  Apr., 
1860. 

5McPherson:  Annals  of  Commerce.     London,  1805,  i. 


^&^ 

—  ARISTOTELIAN   PHILOSOPHY.  157 

not  without  some  poetic  license,  though  of  a  different 
kind,  tells  us  that  the  first  papal  legate  sent  to  Scotland  in 
1247  "drew  the  money  out  of  the  Scots  to  himself  as 
strongly  as  the  adamant  does  iron."  Hugo  de  Bercy,1  in 
1248,  speaks  of  the  compass  as  in  common  use,  and  notes 
a  change  in  its  construction,  the  needle  now  being  sup- 
ported by  two  floats  and  arranged  in  a  glass  cup.  The 
Norwegians,2  by  the  middle  of  the  century,  not  only  had 
the  instrument  in  constant  employment,  but  were  using  it 
as  an  especial  reward  of  merit  and  as  the  device  of  an 
order  of  knighthood. 

Meanwhile  the  influence  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle 
had  greatly  augmented,  and  his  writings  were  the  subjects 
of  commentaries  innumerable.  But  the  world  was  in- 
debted to  the  Arabs  for  the  Aristotelian  text,  and  it  had 
come  down  from  copyist  to  copyist,  gathering  errors  as  the 
rolling  snowball  gathers  snow  on  its  way;  for  the  tran- 
scribers of  the  East  were  not  the  patient  and  accurate 
writers  of  the  monasteries,  and  they  had  little  compunc- 
tion about  adding  paragraphs  here  and  there  drawn  from 
their  own  imaginations.  But  worse  even  than  this,  there 
also  appeared  works  attributed  to  Aristotle  which  are  now 
generally  conceded  to  be  entirely  spurious  and  of  purely 
Arabic  origin.  Such,  for  example,  is  the  Arabic  transla- 
tion of  a  Book  of  Stones,  of  which,  if  it  ever  existed,  no 
trace  remains,  nor  can  any  reference  to  it  be  found  in  any 
classic  author. 

The  Arabic  treatise  does  not  purport  to  be  even  a  com- 
plete translation  of  the  alleged  work  of  Aristotle,  but 
merely  a  collection  of  excerpts.  Nevertheless  it  seems  to 
have  been  received  with  the  same  respect  accorded  to  the 
philosopher's  genuine  writings,  and  this  despite  the  fact 
that  the  manuscripts  of  it  must  have  materially  differed 
among  themselves.  In  certain  of  these  codices,  though 
evidently  not  in  all,  for  the  passage  is  wholly  absent  in 

'Riccioli  :  Geograph.  and  Hydrograph.,  lib.  x.,  cap.  18. 
2Torfaeus:  Hist.  Norweg.,  lib.  iv.,  345. 


158         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

that  possessed  by  the  great  National  Library  of  France,1 
there  appeared  an  account  of  the  magnet  which  did  much 
to  retard  the  progress  of  the  science. 

It  was  unearthed  by  both  Albertus  Magnus2  and  Vincent 
de  Beauvais,3  who  refer  to  it  in  their  works,  so  that  there 
is  still  the  further  hypothesis  that  it  was  originally  in- 
vented by  one  of  them,  and  hence  not  chargeable  even  to 
the  Arabs.  It  sets  forth  that  the  point  of  the  magnet 
which  attracts  iron  is  to  the  north,  and  the  point  which 
repels  it  is  to  the  south;  and  it  asserts  that  if  the  iron  be 
held  to  the  point  which  respects  the  north  the  iron  will 
turn  to  the  north;  which  is  untrue,  for  the  pole  of  the 
magnet  which  is  directed  to  the  north  is  the  south  pole, 
and  it  will  induce  a  north  pole  in  the  iron,  and  that  north 
pole  will  turn  to  the  south,  and  not  to  the  north.  But  the 
substance  of  what  is  said,  whether  right  or  wrong,  is  of 
much  less  moment  than  the  historical  fact  that  here  prob- 
ably began  that  complex  tangle  of  relations  between  the 
poles  of  the  lodestone,  the  poles  of  the  needle  magnetized 
from  it  by  induction,  the  poles  of  the  heavens,  and,  later, 
the  poles  of  the  earth,4  in  which  the  philosophers  of  the 
1 6th  century  were  even  more  hopelessly  enmeshed  than 
those  of  the  I3th,  and  which  is  not  clearly  unraveled  yet 
in  our  own  terminology;  for  we  still  persist  in  calling  that 

1  MS.  Arab.,  No.  402,  St   Germ.,  quoted  by  Kl-aproth,  cit.  sup.,  52. 

2  De  Mineralibus,  lib.  ii.,  tract  iii.,  c.  v.:  Opera.     Leyden,  1651. 

3  Vincent!  Bellovacensis:  Speculi  Naturales,  etc.,  torn,  ii.,  lib.  ix.,  c.  19. 
*The  modern  confusion  arises  from  referring  to  the  magnet  needle  as 

having  a  north  and  south  polarity.  The  end  which  points  to  the  north 
magnetic  pole  of  the  earth  is,  of  course,  south  in  polarity,  although  it  is 
often  marked  N,  and  spoken  of  as  the  north  pole  of  the  needle.  French 
writers  frequently  omit  the  inversion,  and  designate  by  north  end  of  the 
needle  that  which  in  fact  points  southerly.  Maxwell  proposed  the 
terms  "positive"  or  "austral"  magnetism  to  indicate  that  of  the  north 
end  of  the  magnet,  and  ''negative"  or  "boreal"  magnetism  that  of  the 
south  end.  So  also  it  has  been  suggested  to  speak  of  the  poles  alter- 
nately as  "  red  "  and  "  blue."  It  is  gradually  becoming  common  to  call 
the  extremity  of  the  needle  which  turns  to  the  north  the  "north  seek- 
ing" or  "marked"  end. 


LODESTONE  SUPERSTITIONS.  159 

end  of  the  needle  which  points  to  the  north  the  north 
pole,  when,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  its  inherent  polarity  of 
course  is  south. 

After  this  follow  a  series  of  falsehoods  which  we  shall 
find  afterwards  cropping  up  everywhere.  We  are  told  that 
the  magnet  attracts  lead  because  it  is  the  softest  of  metals, 
and  that  the  magnetic  ardor  penetrates  and  corrodes  stones 
and  tarnishes  their  brilliancy.  That  some  magnets  attract 
gold,  others  silver,  and  others  iron  ;  and  that,  if  the  gold 
be  in  a  fine  powder  and  mixed  with  sand,  the  magnet  will 
separate  out  every  particle  of  the  metal. 

This  last  is  the  first  suggestion  of  the  process  of  mag- 
netic separation  of  metals  from  other  substances  mixed 
with  them.  The  removal  of  iron  in  this  way  from  an  ad- 
mixture with  sand,  etc.,  is  elaborately  described,  as  we 
shall  see,  by  Porta  and  others,  in  the  sixteenth  century  ; 
so  that  the  same  idea  of  late  years  applied  to  the  magnetic 
extraction  of  the  same  metal  from  its  crushed  ores,  is  of 
much  antiquity. 

Lastly,  there  is  described  the  "creagus"  or  "flesh  mag- 
net," a  stone  "which,  when  once  attached  to  the  body, 
cannot  be  removed  without  tearing  with  it  the  flesh, 
although,  in  the  latter,  not  a  drop  of  blood  will  be  found. " 
This  was  probably  nothing  more  than  pumice,  which  ad- 
heres slightly  to  the  lips  or  other  moist  surface  of  the  body; 
but,  none  the  less,  the  delusion  lasted  well ;  for,  three  cen- 
turies later,  the  wonder  books  told  of  "a  kind  of  adamant 
which  draweth  unto  it  fleshe,  and  the  same  so  strongly 
that  it  hath  power  to  knit  and  tie  together  two  mouthes 
of  contrary  persons  and  drawe  the  heart  of  a  man  out  of  his 
body  without  offending  any  part  of  him." 

1  Fenton  :  Certaine  Secrete  Wonders  of  Nature.  1569.  The  Rev.  Henry 
N.  Hudson,  in  his  excellent  edition  of  Shakespeare,  cites  this  passage  in 
apparent  explanation  of  Hermia's  speech :  "  You  draw  me,  you  hard- 
hearted adamant,"  etc.  (Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  Act  II,  Sc.  i). 
There  will  be  some,  I  fancy,  who  will  be  unwilling  to  take  the  poet  in 
quite  so  literal  a  way,  or  to  accord  to  him  less  play  of  imagination  in  the 
premises  than  was  shown  by  Gautier  d'Epinois. 


160         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

In  about  the  year  1250,  Bartholomew  de  Glanvil,  or,  as 
he  was  commonly  termed,  Bartholomseus  Anglicus,  an 
English  monk  of  the  Minories  order,  wrote  an  encyclo- 
paedic work,1  as  usual  on  the  lines  of  that  of  St.  Isidore. 
His  chapter  on  the  magnet  is  of  no  intrinsic  importance, 
for  it  is  partly  copied  from  the  Etymologies  and  partly- 
taken  from  the  same  source  from  which  Albertus  Magnus 
and  Vincent  de  Beauvais  drew  their  information — the  false 
treatise  of  Aristotle.  But  Glanvil's  work  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  man  who  was  easily  first  among  the  philoso- 
phers of  his  time,  and  whose  genius  towered  over  that  of 
his  contemporaries  like  a  mountain  peak  above  mole-hills. 

For  forty  years,  Roger  Bacon  studied  science  through 
the  medium  of  experiment,  which  extended  chiefly  over 
the  fields  of  alchemy  and  optics.  Meanwhile  he  found 
time  to  learn  Greek,  Arabic,  Hebrew,  Chaldaic,  and  to 
master  all  that  was  known  of  mathematics.  In  an  evil 
hour,  he  jo.  I  the  order  of  Franciscan  monks,  and  then 
found  that  he  had  literally  thrown  himself,  body  and  mind, 
into  chains.  His  writings  were  forbidden.  If  he  at- 
tempted to  instruct  others,  punishment  awaited  him.  He 
was  denied  books,  and  because,  despite  all  the  obstacles 
cast  in  his  way,  it  was  evident,  even  to  the  dull  minds  of 
those  who  harassed  him,  that  his  knowledge  of  nature  was 
far  beyond  that  of  the  world  in  general,  he  was  accused 
of  sorcery.  When  he  was  not  treated  like  a  disobedient 
school-boy,  he  was  dealt  with  as  a  suspected  heretic.2 

At  length  there  came  a  pope — Clement  IV. — whose  lean- 
ing toward  scientific  inquiry  caused  a  desire  to  know  what 
Bacon  could  teach  him;  so  he  ordered  the  monk  to  disobey 
his  superiors,  hastily  and  secretly,  and  to  write  out  his 
treatises  and  send  them  to  Rome.  Bacon  had  already 
exhausted  his  pecuniary  resources,  for  he  had  expended 
some  2000  livres  on  his  experiments;  and  how  was  he,  a 
mendicant  friar  and  penniless,  to  find  the  sum  necessary 

1  Lib.  de  Proprietatibus. 

2  Lewes:  Hist,  of  Philosophy.     London,  1867,  ii.  77. 


ROGER    BACON.  l6l 

to  pay  the  scribes  for  transcribing  his  works?  Further 
than  this,  how  was  such  a  task  to  be  done  in  the  monas- 
tery, where  he  met  hostility  at  every  hand?  The  Pope 
sent  him  no  money,  nor  even  dared  to  interfere  in  his  be- 
half with  the  ruling  powers  of  his  order. 

Nevertheless,  he  undertook  the  task  single-handed,  and 
in  eighteen  months,  by  dint  of  labor  which,  in  the  face  of 
the  difficulties  encountered,  seems  almost  superhuman,  he 
had  composed  and  written  out  and  dispatched  his  Opus 
Majus,  Opus  Minus  and  Opus  Tertium.  Almost  imme- 
diately after  receiving  these,  the  pope  died.  For  ten  years 
thereafter  Bacon  was  allowed  to  prosecute  his  studies  in 
peace.  Then,  in  1278,  in  his  64th  year,  a  council  of  Fran- 
ciscans condemned  his  works,  and  he  was  sentenced  to 
solitary  confinement  in  his  cell,  and  it  is  generally  believed 
that  he  died  while  thus  immured. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  career  of  the  first  great  apostle 
of  experimental  science  who,  in  an  age  thp  'iole  temper 
of  which  was  against  scientific  and  philosophical  studies, 
conceived  of  the  essential  connection  between  all  sciences 
and  their  dependence  upon  the  fixed  and  universal  laws  of 
nature;  who  brought  grammar,  philology,  geography, 
chronology,  arithmetic  and  music  into  scientific  form  ; 
who  laid  the  foundations  of  optics ;  who  discovered  the 
explosive  force  of  gunpowder,  and  probably  invented  the 
telescope;  and  whose  " Greater  Work "  was  at  once  "the 
Encyclopaedia  and  the  Novum  Organum  of  the  i3th 
century." 

Through  the  treatise  of  Glanvil  the  attention  of  Bacon 
seems  to  have  been  directed  to  the  magnet,  which  he  calls 
the  u  miracle  of  nature."  He  says  that  the  iron  which  is 
touched  by  the  lodestone  follows  the  part  of  the  latter 
which  excites  it,  and  flies  from  the  other  part ;  and  that  it 
turns  to  the  part  of  the  heavens  to  which  the  part  of  the 
magnet  wherewith  it  was  rubbed  conforms.  He  says  that 
it  is  not  the  Pole  star  which  influences  the  magnet,  for,  if 
such  were  the  case,  the  iron  would  always  be  attracted 
ii 


1 62         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

toward  the  star.  On  the  contrary,  the  rubbed  portion  of 
the  iron  will  follow  the  rubbing  part  of  the  magnet  in  any 
direction,  backwards  or  forwards,  or  to  the  right  or  left ; 
and  if  the  iron  be  floated  in  a  vessel  of  water  and  the  mag- 
net placed  beneath,  the  same  part  of  the  iron  will  sub- 
merge itself  to  meet  the  magnet,  while,  if  the  magnet  be 
placed  above,  it  will  rise  upward.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
the  opposite  portion  of  the  magnet  be  presented,  the  iron 
(rubbed  part  as  before)  will  always  fly  from  it,  uas  the 
lamb  from  the  wolf."  Consequently  he  concludes  that  the 
magnet  is  influenced  by  the  four  parts  of  the  heavens,  and 
not  by  the  one  part  in  which  the  Pole  star  is  located. 

If  Bacon  did  not  actually  discover  the  law  of  magnetic 
action  (like  poles  mutually  repel,  unlike  poles  attract),  it  is 
manifest,  from  the  foregoing,  that' he  came  very  close  to 
doing  so.  At  all  events,  he  brought  the  condition  of  gen- 
eral knowledge  on  the  subject  to  a  point  where  the  very 
next  step  resulted  in  discoveries  of  the  highest  importance. 

Bacon  was  pre-eminently  a  teacher,  and  seems  to  have 
freely  communicated  his  knowledge  to  others  whenever  he 
was  not  restrained  from  doing  so.  To  Brunette  Latini, 
the  celebrated  Florentine  grammarian  and  preceptor  of 
Dante,  he  not  only  told  what  he  knew  about  the  magnet, 
but  repeated  his  experiments  in  his  presence.  Latini,  at 
that  time,  was  in  exile,  and  visited  Oxford,  where  Bacon 
resided,  in  about  the  year  1260.  He  died  in  1294.  He 
describes  the  compass  in  his  Li  Livres  dou  Tresor,1  and,  in 
certain  letters  written  during  his  sojourn  in  England,  he 
tells  how  Bacon  showed  him  the  "ugly  and  black  stone  to 
which  the  iron  voluntarily  joined  itself,"  and  the  needle 
which,  when  rubbed  by  the  stone,  turned  to  the  star  and 
guided  the  mariners. 

In  the  Opiis  tertium  Bacon  says  that  there  are  but  two 
perfect  mathematicians,  Master  John  of  London  and 
"Master  Petrus  de  Maharn,  curia,  a  Picard."  John  of 

*Li  Livres  dou  Tresor.  Paris,  1863,  p.  3.  Mainly  a  collection  of  ex- 
cerpts from  earlier  authors. 


MEDIEVAL   COSMICAL   PHILOSOPHY.  163 

London  was  his  own  disciple,  "nurtured  and  instructed 
for  the  love  of  God,"  and  the  trusted  bearer  of  his  com- 
pleted works  to  Rome  in  1267.  For  John,  Bacon  predicted 
a  glorious  future  "if  he  live  to  grow  old  and  goes  on  as  he 
has  begun."  But  upon  Peter — this  Picard  from  Maricourt 
— he  lavishes  all  his  praise,  all  his  enthusiasm.  And 
Master  Peter  had  well  deserved  it.  From  the  trenches  be- 
fore Lucera  he  had  written  an  epistle,  which  later  came  to 
be  known  as  the  "Letter  of  Peter  Peregrinus" — a  missive, 
little  remembered  now,  often  misunderstood,  often  plagiar- 
ized centuries  ago,  more  often  misinterpreted,  but  none  the 
less  a  great  epoch-making  deliverance — an  imperishable 
landmark  in  the  path  of  physical  discovery. 


Before  entering  upon  the  examination  of  this  work,  a 
brief  reference  to  some  features  of  the  generally  accepted 
cosmical  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages  is  here  necessary. 
That  our  globe  was  the  centre  of  the  universe,  and  thus 
fixed  and  immovable,  was  undisputed.  Encompassing  it 
were  supposed  to  exist  ten  heavens,  successively  envelop- 
ing one  another ;  all  except  the  outermost  being  in  con- 
stant rotation  about  their  common  centre.  The  highest 
or  external  heaven  formed  the  boundary  between  creation 
and  space,  and  here  abode  the  Deity,  forever  hearing  the 
harmony  of  the  spheres  which  lay  below  Him,  in  an  endless 
hymn  of  glory  and  praise.  Beneath  the  Empyrean  came 
the  crystal  heaven,  or  primum  mobile,  then  the  heaven  of 
subtle  elements  without  weight,  constituting  the  fixed 
stars,  while  the  successive  inner  shells  were  respectively 
the  heavens  of  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  the  Sun,  Venus, 
Mercury,  and,  finally,  of  the  Moon  ;  the  Earth  and  its 
atmosphere  being  sublunary  things.  All  motion  of  these 
heavens  was  the  direct  work  of  angels  or  intelligences, 
and  the  laws  of  Nature  were  merely  divine  precepts  which 
they  carried  into  execution. 

Ages,  however,  before  these  notions  were  conceived,  the 


164         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

apparent  rotation  of  the  heavens  had  been  observed  ;  and 
not  only  this,  but  also  that  this  revolving  motion  was 
seemingly  about  an  axis,  the  intersection  of  which  with 
the  celestial  vault  marked  the  places  of  the  poles  of  the 
universe.  The  conception  of  such  poles  was  of  still  more 
ancient  date.  The  story  of  Creation,  deciphered  from  the 
broken  and  scattered  remains  of  Assyrian  and  Babylonian 
tablets,  recounts  how  "Maidtik  embellished  the  heavens, 
prepared  places  for  the  great  gods,  made  the  stars,  set  the 
Zodiac  *  *  *  and  fixed  the  poles."  This  carries  the  idea 
of  these  points  back  fully  to  3,000  B.  C. ;  but  it  probably 
had  its  rise  very  much  earlier  in  prehistoric  times.  The 
Kushite-Semite  race,  who  were  the  first  imperial  rulers  of 
the  primeval  world,  called  themselves  "sons  of  the  pole," 
and  substituted,  for  the  reckoning  of  time  by  the  Pleiades, 
one  founded  on  so  purely  a  physical  motion  of  the  heavenly 
pole,  that  they  conceived  the  heavens  to  move  about  it 
with  friction ;  a  fact  which  they  deemed  proved  by  the  ap- 
parent movements  of  the  fixed  stars.  They  even  believed 
the  pole  to  be  an  ever  twirling  fire-drill,  the  heat  of  which 
influenced  the  stars.  The  race  of  Yakotas,  the  sons  of 
Jokshan,  or  Joktan,  in  Genesis,  likewise  believed  that  the 
pole  in  its  revolutions  produced  the  burning  heat  of 
summer.1 

This  material  idea  of  the  poles,  of  cours*e,  has  no  place 
in  the  mediaeval  conception.  They  were  simply  the  points 
about  which  the  concentric  heavens  revolved,  and  that  one 
which  was  visible  to  Europeans  was  marked  by  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Pole  star.  The  progress  of  electrical  knowl- 
edge owes  much  to  this  mediaeval  cosmic  philosophy.  It 
was  because  of  the  belief  in  the  rotary  heavens  that  the 
great  discoveries  now  to  be  recounted  were  made,  and,  as  I 
shall  show  hereafter,  it  was  because  of  a  disbelief  that  the 
earth  stood  still,  that  the  even  greater  work  which  imme- 
diately ushered  in  the  present  science  was  undertaken. 

1  Davis  :  Genesis  and  Semite  Tradition,  New  York,  1894.  Hewitt :  The 
Ruling  Races  of  Prehistoric  Times,  London,  1894. 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE  town  of  Lucera  or  Nocera,  situated  in  the  province 
of  Apulia  in  southern  Italy,  was  founded  early  in  the  thir- 
teenth century  by  Frederick  II.,  Emperor  of  Germany,  as  a 
place  of  free  refuge  and  dwelling  for  the  Saracens.  In  1266, 
Charles  of  Anjou,  who  had  been  crowned  king  of  the  two 
Sicilies  by  Pope  Urban  IV.,  captured  the  town.  Subse- 
quently it  rebelled  and  he  besieged  it  a  second  time.  The 
defense  was  obstinate  and  the  town  was  finally  reduced,  in 
1269,  only  because  of  starvation  and  after  a  year's  siege. 

Among  the  partisans  of  Charles  who  were  encamped 
under  the  walls  of  Lucera  during  this  long  investment  was 
the  Magister  Petrus  de  Maharne-Curia  (or  Master  Peter  de 
Maricourt),  of  whom  Roger  Bacon  speaks  in  glowing 
terms.  The  surname  ude  Maricourt"  is  derived  from  a 
little  village  in  Picardy,  whence  he  came,  and  is  classed 
among  the  territorial  designations  of  the  French  nobility. 
The  title  u  Magister"  indicates  the  academic  grade  of 
"Doctor,"  showing  that  the  bearer  had  studied  and  at- 
tained scholastic  honors.  The  eulogiums  of  Bacon  are  so 
unstinted  that  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  Peter  was 
already  a  man  of  wide  celebrity  for  his  learning  and  skill. 
Bacon1  calls  him  "a  master  of  experiment"  seeing  in  full 
brilliancy  the  things  which  others  grope  for  in  darkness, 
like  bats  in  the  twilight,  and  says  that  through  experiment 
he  had  become  "versed  in  all  natural  science,  whether 
medicinal,  or  alchemical,  or  relating  to  matters  celestial  or 
terrestrial."  He  is  skilled,  the  monk  tells  us,  in  minerals 
and  metal  working— in  arms,  whether  military  or  pertain- 
ing to  the  hunt,  in  agriculture  and  geodesy  and  magic; 

Brewer,  V.:  Fr.  Roger!  Bacon,  Opera.  Lond.,  1859.  °P-  Tertium,  c. 
xi.,  p.  46. 

(165) 


l66         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

and  that  he  pursued  learning  for  its  own  sake,  neglecting 
all  rewards,  although  his  wisdom  was  sufficient  to  have 
enabled  him  to  accumulate  immense  wealth  had  he  so 
willed.  That  his  experiments  were  continued  over  a  con- 
siderable period  of  time  is  shown  by  Bacon's  statement 
that  he  worked  for  three  years  upon  burning  glasses — evi- 
dently following  in  the  footsteps  of  Archimedes.  But,  of 
all  his  achievements,  that  which  most  excites  the  admira- 
tion of  the  Friar,  is  his  invention  of  a  perpetual  motion  : 
the  first  recorded  contrivance  of  the  kind  which  came  into 
the  world,  and  probably  the  only  one  which  in  the  end 
served  a  good  purpose. 

Here  again  the  influence  of  Archimedes  is  apparent. 
There  had  always  been  a  tradition  that  that  philosopher 
constructed  a  sphere  which  reproduced  the  motions  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  Cicero1  refers  to  it  in  a  general  way, 
and  Kircher2  devotes  a  chapter  to  speculation  on  its  possi- 
ble construction;  but  probably  it  was  nothing  more  than 
an  orrery,  showing  the  supposed  relative  positions  and 
movements  of  the  planets,  but  destitute,  of  course,  of  any 
automatic  mechanism. 

The  circumstances  which  led  to  Master  Peter's  presence 
at  the  siege  of  Lucera  are  not  difficult  to  conjecture.  He 
probably  belonged  to  one  of  the  semi-military  religious 
orders  which,  like  the  Templars,  took  an  active  part  in 
the  Crusades.  The  name  of  "Peregrinus"  or  Pilgrim, 
which  later  writers  substitute  for  the  surname  udeMari- 
court,"  shows  that  he  had  made  the  pilgrimage  to  the 
Holy  Land — for  this  was  a  common  honorary  title  ac- 
corded to  persons  who  had  taken  part  in  the  efforts  to 
rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre;  and,  as  Charles  of  Anjou,  under 
whom  we  now  find  him  serving,  had  joined  the  first  crusade 

1  De  Nat.  Deorum,  ii,  35.     Tusc.  Disp.,  i.  25. 

2De  Arte  Magnetica.  Rome,  1654,  lib.  ii.,  part  iv  ,  p.  245.  See  also, 
Claud.  Ep.  xxi.  In  Sphaerum  Archim.,  Sext.  Empiric,  adv.  Math.  ix. 
15.  Lactantius:  Div.  Inst.,  ii.  5.  Ov.:  Fast  vi.  277.  Smith:  Diet,  of  Gr. 
and  Rom.  Biog.  and  Myth.  i.  2711. 


PETER  PEREGRINUS.  167 

of  his  brother  Louis  IX.,  of  France,  Peter  or  Peregrinus— 
as  for  the  sake  of  uniformity  with  the  old  writers  we  shall 
hereafter  term  him — very  probably  went  to  the  Orient 
in  Charles'  train.  Friar  Bacon  indicates  plainly  enough 
what  his  functions  were.  He  was  skilled  in  arms  and 
magic,  and  as  pretty  much  all  mechanical  and  physical 
knowledge,  in  those  days,  over  and  above  what  Archi- 
medes had  taught,  was  included  broadly  under  the  last- 
named  term,  Peregrinus  was,  in  brief,  an  engineer.  He 
probably  devised  engines  for  throwing  stones  and  fire-balls, 
or  for  breaching  walls  ;  while  his  knowledge  of  geodesy 
came  into  play  in  building  fortifications  and  digging  mines. 
During  this  employment,  Peregrinus  seems  to  have  con- 
ceived the  idea  of  converting  the  sphere  of  Archimedes 
into  a  self-moving  magnetic  motor,  and  then  to  have  gone 
a  step  further  and  evolved  a  magnetic  perpetual  motion  on 
an  entirely  different  principle.  It  is  a  most  singular  fact 
that  he  reached  these  delusions  through  a  series  of  bril- 
liant discoveries,  in  which  he  not  only  overthrew  most  of 
the  old  notions  concerning  magnetism,  but  established, 
for  the  first  time,  the  great  fundamental  laws  of  the  sci- 
ence. Yet  he  cannot  well  be  condemned  for  thus  landing 
in  an  impossibility.  No  one  knew  that  such  a  thing  as  a 
self-moving  machine  was  impossible.  The  force  of  such  a 
conception/ especially  when  attained  through  the  medium 
of  experimentation  which  was  correct  in  itself,  and  upon 
an  intellect  educated  perhaps  to  as  high  a  degree  as  was 
attainable  in  those  days  to  the  appreciation  of  the  magni- 
tude of  it,  may  well  have  been  overwhelming.  A  machine 
'moved  by  the  virtue  which  God  had  put  into  the  lodestone 
and  requiring  no  human  aid — such  was  the  initial  idea 
which,  running  on  to  other  conclusions,  must  have  de- 
veloped itself  into  speculation  concerning  the  stupendous 
results  which  many  such  machines  could  accomplish,  the 
possible  accumulation  of  their  powers,  and  the  vast  aggre- 
gated mights — and  that  was  an  age  when  might  made 
right — which  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  whoever  con- 


l68         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

trolled  them.  And  beyond  all  this,  conceive  of  the 
tremendous  influence  upon  this  soldier-monk,  imbued 
with  the  superstitions  of  his  creed,  of  the  conviction  that 
he  might  be  the  chosen  of  the  Almighty  to  remove  the 
curse  of  Eden,  and  to  relieve  man  from  the  earning  of  his 
bread  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 

He  does  not  say  this  in  the  letter  which  he  wrote  on  the 
1 2th  day  of  August,  1269,  from  the  trenches  in  front 
of  Lucera.  The  stake  would,  no  doubt,  have  claimed  him 
in  short  order,  had  he  dared  even  to  breathe  a  word  of  such 
a  doctrine.  But  no  one  can  read  that  missive  without  see- 
ing how  deeply  the  writer's  soul  was  stirred  within  him. 
The  person  to  whom  he  sent  it  was  not  a  philosopher  like 
himself,  not  even  a  scholar,  but  a  knight,  one  Sigerus  of 
Foucaucourt,  and  his  next-door  neighbor  at  home.  "  Ami- 
corum  in  time" — ''nearest  of  friends" — is  the  form  of  ad- 
dress, and  the  story  is  told  as  if  in  answer  to  some  question 
put  by  Sigerus  concerning  the  occult  virtue  of  the  magnet. 
But  it  all  leads  up  to  the  machine  which  its  inventor 
thought  would  run  forever,  and  which  is  described  in  his 
last  chapter ;  and  what  precedes  is  introduction,  evidently 
intended  simply  to  educate  the  recipient  to  a  comprehen- 
sion of  the  great  result  which  the  writer  believed  he  had 
attained.  It  was  the  beginning  of  the  arch-delusion  in 
mechanics  which  ran  for  centuries  parallel  with  the  arch- 
delusion  in  chemistry,  and  with  consequences  very  similar. 
For,  as  the  search  for  the  philosopher's  stone  and  the 
elixir  of  youth  brought  to  light  many  of  the  basic  truths 
of  the  one  science,  so  the  equally  vain  quest  for  the  per- 
petual motion  has  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  many  of 
the  underlying  principles  of  the  other. 

But  let  us  examine  the  letter  itself.  It  begins  with  a 
brief  table  of  contents  designed  to  show  the  orderly  plan 
on  which  it  is  arranged.  There  are  two  parts — the  first 
divided  into  ten  chapters  and  relating  to  general  prin- 
ciples ;  the  second,  into  three  chapters,  which  set  forth 
the  apparatus  in  which  these  principles  are  embodied. 


PETER  PEREGRINUS.  169 

After  stating  that  he  proposes  to  describe  the  occult 
nature  of  the  lodestone  in  simple  language,  Peregrinus 
lays  down  the  principles  of  experimental  research.  While 
he  admits  the  value  of  general  reasoning,  he  warns  the 
reader  against  relying  upon  speculation  and  theory  alone. 

In  the  abstract,  he  says,  many  things  appear  true  and  cor- 
rect which  cannot  be  done  by  hands.  The  student  must 
exhibit  the  wonderful  effects  by  his  work  ;  for,  by  actually 
doing  things,  he  can  remedy  errors  which  he  never  can  cor- 
rect by  mathematics.  This  may  seem  curious  counsel  from 
the  inventor  of  a  perpetual  motion,  and  lead  to  the  query 
whether  he  practiced  what  he  himself  preached.  The  an- 
swer is  suggested  further  on,  when  Peregrinus  describes 
the  first  of  his  self-moving  contrivances.  If  it  does  not 
work,  that  fact,  he  says,  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  lack  of 
mechanical  skill  in  the  maker,  rather  than  to  inherent 
difficulties  of  the  mechanism.  This,  of  course,  is  one  way 
of  avoiding  a  troublesome  issue ;  but  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  Peregrinus  is  writing  from  the  seat  of  war, 
where  he  probably  has  had  no  means  of  obtaining  accurate 
workmanship.  He  is  sure  of  the  conclusions  which  he 
has  deduced  from  experiment ;  and,  having  tested  some 
probably  rude  form  of  his  machine  and  finding  that  it  re- 
fuses to  work,  he  considers  this  due,  not  to  erroneous 
deductions,  but  to  imperfections  in  the  making.  Hence 
this  warning  at  the  outset. 

He  next  tells  how  to  select  a  good  magnet.  In  color 
it  must  be  iron-like — slightly  bluish  and  pale.  The  best 
comes  from  the  northern  regions,  and  is  used  by  sailors 
who  travel  between  the  ports  of  the  northern  seas,  notably 
those  of  Normandy  and  Flanders.  This  preference  for  the 
northern  magnet  is  noteworthy,  not  only  as  showing  that 
the  best  lodestone  existed  in  the  part  of  Europe  where  the 
compass  found  its  first  employment,  but  also  because  it 
is  in  direct  variance  with  all  the  earlier  writers  who  in- 
variably give  first  place  to  the  Indian  stone.  The  heavier 
and  more  compact  the  magnet,  the  better,  although  such 


170         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

stones  are  the  most  costly.  A  mode  of  testing  the  lode- 
stone  is  now  for  the  first  time  announced.  The  best 
magnet,  we  are  told,  is  that  which  will  attract  the 
greatest  weight  of  iron,  and  draw  it  most  strongly.  In 
other  words,  Peregrinus  considers  not  only  the  lifting 
power  of  the  stone,  but  the  magnetic  strength,  and  appar- 
ently recognizes  the  difference  between  these  effects.  It 
is  difficult  to  believe  that  a  thirteenth  century  mind  is 
evolving  these  concepts.  Not  until  three  hundred  years 
later  did  Baptista  Porta  and  Cardan  and  other  philos- 
ophers of  the  time  begin  to  measure  the  attractive  force 
by  causing  the  magnet  to  draw  iron  suspended  on  a  scale 
arm. 

All  of  the  foregoing  is  prefatory  to  his  announcement 
of  greater  discoveries.  The  ancient  notions,  as  we  have 
seen,  were  that  the  Pole  star  governed  the  magnet;  then, 
that  the  Pole  star  influenced  the  magnetic  mountains, 
which,  in  turn,  governed  the  magnet;  then,  that  the  mag- 
net was  controlled,  not  by  the  Pole  star,  but  by  all  parts 
of  the  celestial  sphere,  and,  by  their  resultant  action,  the 
needle  was  brought  to  the  north  and  south  position. 
Peregrinus  takes  the  next  step  forward,  and  reveals  the 
poles  in  the  lodestone  itself.  There  are  two  points  in  the 
heavens,  he  says,  of  greater  note  than  the  rest,  "because 
the  celestial  sphere  revolves  about  them  as  if  it  were  on 
pivots,  one  of  which  is  called  the  Arctic  or  north  pole, 
and  the  other,  the  Antarctic  or  south  pole."  So  in  the 
stone  which  he  looks  upon  as  an  image  of  the  celestial 
sphere,  u  you  must  understand  there  are  two  points,  the 
one  north  and  the  other  south." 

Bacon  knew  that  different  parts  of  the  same  magnet 
would  affect  iron  (as  he  supposed)  differently,  one  attract- 
ing, the  other  repelling;  but  he  had  no  notion  that  these 
parts  had  any  definite  position.  Peregrinus  not  only  tells 
us  that  they  have  precise  places — as  precise  as  the  poles 
around  which  the  celestial  sphere  apparently  revolves — 
but  now  proceeds  to  explain  how  they  may  be  found. 


FINDING   THE    MAGNET   POLES.  171 

The  stone  is  to  be  made  in  globular  form  and  polished 
in  the  same  way  as  are  crystals  and  other  stones.  Thus 
it  is  caused  to  conform  in  shape  to  the  celestial  sphere. 
Now  place  upon  it  a  needle  or  elongated  piece  of  iron, 
and  draw  a  line  in  the  direction  of  the  length  of  the 
needle,  dividing  the  stone  in  two.  Then  put  the  needle 
in  another  place  on  the  stone,  and  draw  another  line  in 
the  same  way.  This  may  be  repeated  with  the  needle  in 
other  positions.  All  of  the  lines  thus  drawn  "will  run 
together  in  two  points,  just  as  all  the  meridian  circles  of 
the  world  rzm  together  in  two  opposite  poles  of  the  world." 

Here  was  a  magnet  made  in  spherical  form,  the  poles 
of  it  recognized  and  named,  and  the  magnetic  meridians 
found.  More  than  this,  although  the  lodestone  sphere 
was  regarded  as  an  image  of  the  celestial  sphere,  a  certain 
analogy  between  it  and  the  terrestrial  globe  was  also 
plainly  seen.  Yet,  again,  more  than  three  centuries  were 
to  intervene  before  William  Gilbert  should  perceive  in 
the  globular  magnet  of  Peregrinus  a  miniature  earth,  or, 
in  the  world  itself,  only  a  great  magnet — a  colossal  re- 
production of  the  Pilgrim's  lodestone  ball. 

Peregrinus  probably  first  found  the  poles  in  the  way  that 
is  above  described.  Then  afterwards  he  remarked  that,  at 
the  points  so  determined,  the  needle  was  more  strongly 
attracted  than  elsewhere.  Consequently,  he  sees  that  the 
poles  can  be  detected  without  marking  the  meridians,  by 
simply  noting  the  places  on  the  stone  where  the  needle  is 
most  frequently  and  powerfully  drawn.  If,  however,  he 
continues,  you  wish  to  be  precise,  break  the  needle  so  as 
to  get  a  short  piece,  about  two  nails  in  length.  Place  this 
on  the  supposed  polar  point.  If  the  needle  stands  perpen- 
dicularly to  the  surface  of  the  stone,  such  point  is  the  true 
pole  ;  if  not,  then  move  the  needle  about  until  the  place  is 
found  where  it  does  thus  stand  erect.  If  these  points  are 
accurately  ascertained  and  the  stone  is  homogeneous  and 
well  chosen,  he  adds,  uthey  will  be  drawn  diametrically 
opposite  one  another  like  the  poles  of  the  sphere. n 


172         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Here  was  still  another  advance.  The  idea  that  the 
lodestone  somehow  influenced  the  space  between  itself 
and  the  iron  had  been  in  existence  from  the  time  of 
Lucretius.  But  this  in  its  latest  form  implied  simply  that 
the  intervening  air  "  consented  "  to  the  passage  of  the 
magnetic  virtue,  and  thus  the  lodestone  became,  as  it 
were,  permitted  to  draw  the  iron.  But  Peregrinus  goes 
•far  beyond  that  or  any  other  earlier  theory  of  the  magnetic 
influence.  He  sees  for  the  first  time  that  the  lodestone 
not  only  attracts  the  iron  over  the  intervening  space  be- 
tween them,  but  compels  the  iron  to  take  a  definite  position 
in  that  space.  In  other  words,  he  perceives  that  when  his 
little  needles  are  placed  at  the  poles  of  the  stone  they  stand 
erect,  while  elsewhere  they  stand  more  or  less  inclined. 
That  was  the  first  definite  recognition  of  the  directive 
action  of  the  magnetic  field  of  force:  the  first  revelation  of 
the  direction  in  which  the  strains  and  stresses  therein  are 
exerted,  shown  by  the  turning  of  the  little  bits  of  iron  in 
response  thereto,  as  an  anchored  boat  swings  to  the  tide, 
or  a  weathercock  to  the  wind. 

Having  found  the  position  of  the  poles,  the  next  step 
is  to  distinguish  one  from  the  other.  "Take,"  says 
Peregrinus,  "a  wooden  vessel,  round,  like  a  dish  or  platter, 
and  put  the  stone  in  it  so  that  the  two  points  of  the  stone 
may  be  equidistant  from  the  edge;  then  put  this  in  a  larger 
vessel  containing  water,  so  that  the  stone  may  float  like  a 
sailor  in  a  boat."  There  must  be  plenty  of  room  in  the 
large  vessel,  so  that  the  one  containing  the  stone  may  not 
meet  the  side  and  so  have  the  free  motion  impeded.  Then 
"the  stone  so  placed  will  turn  in  its  little  vessel  until  the 
north  pole  of  the  stone  will  stand  in  the  direction  of  the 
north  pole  of  the  heavens,  and  the  south  pole  in  that  of  the 
south  pole  of  the  heavens;"  and  if  it  be  removed  from 
this  position,  it  will  return  thereto  uby  the  will  of  God." 
"Since  the  north  and  south  parts  of  the  heavens  are 
known,  so  will  they  be  known  in  the  stone  ;  because  each 
part  of  the  stone  will  turn  itself  to  its  corresponding  part 


THE   LAW  OF   MAGNETIC   ATTRACTION.  173 

of  the  heavens."  Here  the  naming  of  the  magnet  poles 
leads  to  confusion  because  Peregrinus  gives  to  each  magnet 
pole  the  same  name  as  that  of  the  quarter  toward  which 
the  end  of  the  free  needle  pointed  ;  an  example  ever  since 
followed. 

Having  thus  both  located  and  identified  the  poles,  the 
next  step  was  to  determine  their  action  upon  one  another ; 
and  then  fell  all  of  the  old  theory  which  began  with  the 
"theamedes,"  and  ended  with  the  supposed  power  of  the 
magnet  to  repel  as  well  as  to  attract  iron.  Two  stones 
he  says,  are  to  be  prepared,  and  the  poles  determined 
and  marked  by  cuts.  One  stone  is  to  be  placed  in  a 
cup,  and  floated  as  before.  The  other  stone  is  to  be  held 
in  the  hand.  Then,  "if  the  north  part  of  the  stone,  which 
you  hold,  be  brought  to  the  south  part  of  the  stone  floating 
in  the  vessel,  the  floating  stone  will  follow  the  stone  you 
hold,  as  if  wishing  to  adhere  to  it;"  and,  if  the  south  part 
of  the  held  stone  be  brought  to  the  north  part  of  the  float- 
ing stone,  the  same  thing  will  happen.  "Know  it  therefore 
as  a  law,"  he  says,  "that  the  north  part  of  one  stone  attracts 
the  south  part  of  another  stone,  and  the  south,  the  north. ' ' 
But,  if  the  reverse  be  done,  if  the  north  part  of  the 
stone  in  the  hand,  be  brought  to  the  north  part  of  the 
floating  stone,  the  latter  will  flee ;  and  the  same  will 
happen  if  south  be  joined  to  south.  Thus  was  found  the 
fundamental  law  that  unlike  magnetic  poles  mutually 
attract. 

Peregrinus  does  not  lay  down  the  further  law,  that  like 
magnetic  poles  repel ;  for,  singularly  enough,  he  does  not 
recognize  any  actual  repulsion  occurring  between  these 
poles  of  like  name,  but  assumes  that  the  stone  merely 
turns  itself  around  so  that  the  law  already  stated  may 
come  into  play — that  is,  so  that  unlike  poles  may  attract 
one  another.  Finally,  he  attacks  the  theory  that  the  iron 
is  the  natural  affinity  of  the  magnet,  and  that  the  magnet 
will  attract  iron  rather  than  another  magnet.  Here  he 
finds  further  support  in  the  doctrine  of  similitudes,  which, 


174         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

as  we  have  seen,  was  so  generally  prevalent.  The  magnet, 
he  thought,  attracted  the  magnet  more  powerfully  than 
the  iron  because  the  magnet  was  like  the  magnet;  and  he 
uses  the  same  illustration  given  by  Neckam — the  attrac- 
tion of  scammony  for  bile. 

The  more  one  reads  of  this  remarkable  letter,  the  more 
evident  becomes  the  conflict  in  the  mind  of  Peregrinus 
between  the  conclusions  drawn  from  experiment,  and 
those  deduced  from  existing  theories  and  speculations.  It 
is  also  curious  to  note  how  much  further  he  had  extricated 
himself  from  the  prevailing  atmosphere  of  delusions  and 
false  conceptions  than  Neckam  had  done  seventy  years 
earlier.  In  Neckam's  treatise,  the  wholly  speculative 
ideas  predominate;  in  that  of  Peregrinus,  those  which  rest 
purely  upon  experiments  obviously  control.  Neckam  en- 
deavors to  reconcile  the  teachings  of  experiment  with  the 
prevailing  theories,  evidently  through  some  sort  of  impres- 
sion that  he  must  do  so,  even  if  the  results  of  investigation 
are  out  of  harmony  with  those  evolved  from  speculation. 
Peregrinus,  on  the  contrary,  does  just  the  reverse,  and 
tries  not  only  to  harmonize  his  experimental  conclusions 
with  one  another,  but  to  adapt  the  existing  theories  to 
them. 

Yet,  in  one  instance,  he  seems  to  fail  completely,  and 
to  allow  theory  to  lead  him  entirely  astray.  It  has  al- 
ready been  stated  that  in  giving  names  to  the  poles  of  the 
magnet,  Peregrinus  calls  that  pole  " north,"  which  points 
to  the  north  when  the  needle  is  supported  so  as  to  be 
freely  moved.  He  says,  "  You  will  infer  what  part  of  the 
iron  is  attracted  to  each  part  of  the  heavens  from  knowing 
that  the  part  of  the  iron  which  has  touched  the  southern 
part  of  the  magnet  is  turned  to  the  northern  part  of  the 
sky.  The  contrary  will  happen  with  respect  to  that  end 
of  the  iron  which  has  touched  the  north  part  of  the  stone, 
namely,  it  will  direct  itself  towards  the  south."  It  is 
difficult  to  see  how  he  could  have  made  this  error  in  the 
face  of  his  experiments;  for,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  end 


THE  NAMING  OF  THE  MAGNET  POLES.  175 

of  the  needle  which  touched  the  south  part  of  the  lode- 
stone  must  have  acquired  north  polarity,  and,  therefore, 
have  pointed  to  the  south,  which  is  exactly  the  reverse  of 
what  he  states.  True,  the  doctrine  of  similitudes  would 
lead  him  to  infer  that  the  north  pole  of  the  magnet  would 
point  to  the  north  pole  of  the  heavens;  but  why  should  he 
allow  that  theory  to  control  his  ideas  in  the  face  of  this 
particular  demonstrated  fact,  when  he  has  no  hesitation 
in  stating  conclusions  drawn  from  other  facts  in  the  same 
series  of  experiments,  which  were  directly  in  the  teeth  of 
that  theory  ?  Two  reasons  may  be  given  to  account  for 
this.  The  first  is  that  .the  error  was  not  due  to  Peregrinus, 
but  to  a  transposition  of  terms  by  some  copyist. 

The  second  and  stronger  reason  becomes  clear  when  it 
is  remembered  that  the  doctrine  of  similitudes  was  more 
commonly  applied  with  reference  to  the  magnet  and 
needle  than  with  reference  to  needle  and  Pole  star.  The 
end  of  the  needle  in  the  compass  was  always  rubbed  by 
one  and  the  same  end  of  the  magnet,  and  thereafter  it 
turned  to  the  north.  Therefore  it  was  concluded  a  priori 
that  the  pole  of  the  magnetizing  lodestone  must  also  be 
north.  Peregrinus  undoubtedly,  as  others  had  done, 
rubbed  the  north  end  of  his  magnet  to  the  needle  and 
saw  the  latter  point  to  the  north,  and  thus,  as  he  supposed, 
he  established  the  principle,  not  by  theory,  but  by  actual 
experiment.  And  that  the  prevailing  theory  harmonized 
with  the  experiment  tended,  of  course,  still  further  to  sup- 
port the  latter. 

If  he  had  presented  to  the  supposed  north  pole  of  the 
needle  the  south  pole  of  the  magnet,  he  would  have  seen 
repulsion  instead  of  attraction,  and  possibly  have  been  led 
to  question  his  hypothesis;  but  that  is  asking  altogether 
too  much  of  an  investigator  of  the  thirteenth  century.  In 
that  he  experimented  on  the  subject  at  all  connotes  im- 
portant progress.  To  suggest  that  he  might  have  experi- 
mented to  test  the  apparently  plain  conclusions  of  observa- 
tion, is  simply  to  impute  to  him  a  capacity  for  inductive 
reasoning  far  in  advance  of  his  ao;e. 


176         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  next  great  discovery  which  Peregrinus  notes  is  the 
possibility  of  changing  the  magnetic  poles.  "If,"  he 
says,  "the  south  part  of  the  iron  which  has  been  rubbed 
by  the  north  part  of  the  stone  be  forced  to  meet  the 
south  part  of  the  stone;  or  the  north  part  of  the  iron, 
which  has  been  rubbed  by  the  south  part  of  the  stone,  be 
forced  to  meet  the  north  part  of  the  latter,  then  the  virtue 
of  the  iron  will  be  altered;  and  if  it  were  north,  it  will  be 
made  south,  and  vice  versa.  And  the  cause  of  this  is  the 
last  impression  acting,  confounding,  or  counteracting  and 
altering  the  original  virtue"  Unless  Peregrinus  drew 
some  occult  distinction,  in  his  own  mind,  between  the 
influence  of  the  heavenly  sphere  upon  the  magnet  and 
upon  the  needle  receiving  its  virtue  therefrom,  it  is  diffi- 
cult to  perceive  why  this  remarkable  revelation  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  destroying  or  reversing  magnetic  polarity  did 
not  suggest  to  him  that  such  influence  must  be  of  a  strange 
and  inconsistent  kind  if  it  could  be  thus  neutralized  or 
inverted.  But  this  again  is  a  nineteenth  century  criticism. 

Peregrinus  does  see,  however,  that  the  poles  of  the  lode- 
stone  are  apparently  unstable,  in  a  curious  sort  of  way:  and 
he  announces  that  the  unlike  poles  of  two  magnets  come 
together  not  only  to  assimilate,  but  to  unite  and  make  one. 
Then,  to  prove  this,  he  cuts  a  magnet  in  two  and  shows 
that  each  part  has  two  different  poles.  And  yet,  when  the 
parts  are  brought  together  to  reconstitute  the  magnet  in 
its  original  form,  the  polarity  is  the  same  as  before  the 
cutting,  and  two  of  the  four  poles  which  the  two  frag- 
ments possessed  have  seemingly  vanished.  That  is  the 
first  announcement  of  the  persistence  of  polarity  in  the 
separated  parts  of  a  lodestone,  and  it  was  a  refutation 
in  advance  of  the  later  theory  of  two  magnetic  fluids 
residing  only  in  opposite  ends  of  the  stone.  The  ex- 
periments1 are  stated  in  some  detail,  but,  as  they  amount 

1  In  the  printed  copy  of  Peregrinus'  letter  which  the  British  Museum 
possesses,  Dr.  John  Dee,  Queen  Elizabeth's  favorite  astrologer,  has  cov- 
ered the  pages  relating  to  them  with  underscorings  and  diagrams,  as  if 
he  regarded  that  part  of  the  work  as  the  most  important  of  all. 


THE  SOURCE  OF  MAGNETIC  VIRTUE.  177 

merely  to  transpositions  of  the  pieces  of  the  divided  stone, 
it  is  not  necessary  to  trace  them  minutely  here.  The 
conclusion  is  that  the  unlike  poles  attract  because  natur- 
ally they  desire  to  unite  and  make  one;  whereas  the  like 
poles,  also  because  of  their  nature,  have  no  such  desire. 

Peregrinus  next  remarks  that  some  unlearned  people 
have  supposed  that  the  virtue  by  which  the  magnet  attracts 
iron  is  already  existing  in  the  mineral  veins  in  which  the 
magnet  is  found;  "whence  they  say  that  the  iron  is  moved 
to  the  poles  of  the  earth  because  of  the  mines  of  the  stone 
there  existing."  But,  he  declares,  the  mines  of  the  stone 
are  found  in  various  places  in  the  earth,  and  hence  the 
needle  influenced  by  them  should  stand  irregularly  in  dif- 
ferent positions;  which  is  not  the  fact.  Now,  he  concludes, 
"wherever  a  man  may  be  he  may  see  with  his  eyes  this 
motion  of  the  stone,  according  to  the  place  of  its  meridian 
circle.  But  all  meridian  circles  meet  at  the  poles:  where- 
fore from  the  poles  of  the  world  the  poles  of  the  magnet 
receive  their  virttie. ' ' 

He  evidently  regards  the  poles  of  the  earth,  and  those 
of  the  heavens,  as  in  the  same  axial  line,  and  attributes  no 
especial  directive  faculty  to  those  of  the  earth.  For,  he 
adds  that  the  needle  does  not  point  to  the  Pole  star,  which 
varies  in  place,  but  to  the  heavenly  poles,  thus  showing 
that  he  knew,  possibly  by  means  of  astronomical  observa- 
tions, that  the  common  opinion  of  his  contemporaries,  that 
the  position  of  the  Pole  star  coincided  with  that  of  the 
pole  of  the  heavens,  was  erroneous.1 

The  first  part  of  Peregrinus'  letter,  which  I  have  now 
reviewed,  ends  with  the  description  of  his  first  form  of 
perpetual  motion,  and  this,  as  I  have  already  stated,  is 
apparently  based  on  the  Archimedean  sphere.  He  intro- 
duces it  as  a  means  of  showing  how  all  parts  of  the 

1  This  opinion,  however,  was  not  universal  in  the  Middle  Ages,  as  is 
shown  by  a  celestial  globe  (Cufic- Arabic)  in  the  National  Museum  at 
Naples  which  dates  from  1225,  and  in  which  the  Pole  star  is  indicated 
5>^°  distant  from  the  pole. 
12 


178         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

heavens,  and  not  the  poles  only,  influence  the  magnet ; 
but  he  is  very  cautious,  and  throws  the  burden  of  success 
or  failure  upon  the  maker.  Make  a  globular  magnet,  he 
says,  and  find  the  poles.  Then  affix  two  pivots,  on  which 
the  globe  may  turn.  See  that  it  is  equally  balanced  and 
turns  easily  on  the  pivots,  and  try  this  repeatedly  for  many 
days  and  at  different  times  in  the  day.  Now  place  the 
stone  with  its  axis  in  the  meridian  of  the  place,  and  dis- 
pose its  poles  so  as  to  correspond  to  the  elevation  or  de- 
pression of  the  heavenly  poles  in  the  region  where  you 
may  be.  And  then — 

But  Peregrinus  here  drops  his  affirmative  style  and  takes 
refuge  in  u  ifs." 

^If  the  stone  is  moved  according  to  the  motion  of 
the  heavens,  you  will  delight  in  having  found  so  wonder- 
ful a  secret;  but  if  not,  impute  the  failure  rather  to  your 
own  unskillfulness  than  to  nature." 

What  he  believed  would  happen — he  had  never  tried 
the  experiment — was  that  the  globular  magnet,  being  on 
the  (then  considered)  motionless  earth,  and  being  in- 
fluenced by  the  heavenly  vault  revolving  about  it,  would 
follow  the  motion  of  the  sky  and  so  rotate.1  He  thought 
it  might  even  serve  as  a  timepiece.  But  this  delusion 
nevertheless  bears  good  fruit — for,  he  adds,  "in  this  posi- 
tion (i.  e.,  in  the  magnetic  meridian)  I  believe  the  virtues 
of  the  stone  to  be  best  preserved,"  which  is  true. 

In  order  to  appreciate  the  remarkable  improvements 
which  were  embodied  in  the  instruments  which  Peregrinus 
now  proceeds  to  describe,  it  may  be  recalled  that  the  ex- 
isting compass  was  nothing  but  a  needle  supported  on  a 
reed  so  as  to  float  in  a  vessel  of  water.  It  simply  showed, 

1 "  It  was  the  opinion  of  Pet.  Peregrinus,  and  there  is  an  example  pre- 
tended for  it  in  Beltinus  (Apiar.  g.  Progym.,  5,  pro.,  u)  that  a  mag- 
netical  globe  or  terella  being  rightly  placed  upon  its  poles,  would  of 
itself  have  a  constant  rotation  like  the  diurnal  motion  of  the  earth ;  but 
this  is  commonly  exploded,  as  being  against  all  experience."  Wilkins: 
Mathematical  Magick,  London,  1707,  5th  ed.,  Chap.  XIII. 


PEREGRINUS'    COMPASS.  179 

during  cloudy  weather,  trie  position  of  the  Pole  star.  It 
was  not  combined  with  any  scale,  nor  was  any  means  pro- 
vided whereby  a  vessel  could  be  steered  on  a  given  course 
by  the  direct  aid  of  the  compass  itself.  In  other  words, 
the  compass  had  no  "lubber's  point"  or  fiducial  line,  and 
the  angle  of  the  course  to  a  true  north  and  south  line  was 
only  guessed  at.  The  nautical  astrolabe,  however,  was 
fairly  well  known,  and  was  used  for  measuring  the  alti- 
tude of  the  sun.  It  was  a  ring  of  metal  divided  into  quad- 
rants and  graduated  in  degrees.  It  had  cross-pieces,  so  that 
there  could  be  pivoted  at  its  center  a  bar  with  sight 
notches  at  opposite  ends.  The  user  held  the  ring  in 
suspension  by  his  left  hand,  so  that  its  vertical  diameter 
would  be  plumb.  Then,  with  his  right  hand  he  manipu- 
lated the  sight-bar  before  his  eye,  glancing  first  along  it  at 
the  horizon  line,  and  then  elevating  it  to  the  position  of 
the  sun,  thus  rudely  measuring  the  angle  of  altitude  of  the 
sun  above  the  horizon.  Peregrinus  now  combined  the 
nautical  astrolabe  and  the  compass,  and  then,  for  the  first 
time,  he  produced  a  compass  having  a  graduated  scale  and 
a  fiducial  line  or  "lubber's  point,"  which  not  only  could 
be  steered  by,  but  which  could  be  used  for  taking  the 
azimuth  of  any  heavenly  body.  This  was  very  ingen- 
iously done.  He  makes  his  magnet  in  ovoid  form  and 
puts  it  in  a  .bowl  in  symmetrical  position.  Then,  on  the 
upper  circular  edge  of  that  bowl  he  places  marks,  so  that 
a  diametral  line  will  coincide  with  a  line  passing  through 
the  poles  of  the  magnet,  which  last  he  has  already  deter- 
mined. Then  he  marks  another  line  at  right  angles  to 
this,  and  finally  divides  the  four  quadrants  into  ninety 
parts  each,  so  that  each  division  is  of  course  one  degree  of 
the  circle.  Now  he  places  the  bowl  in  a  large  vessel 
(probably  glass)  of  water,  in  which  the  bowl  floats,  and 
the  magnet,  of  course,  places  itself  with  its  poles  in  the 
magnetic  meridian.  Thus  he  can  recognize  all  points  of 
the  horizon  by  the  marks  which  he  has  put  on  the  edge 
of  the  bowl.  Lastly,  he  rests  upon  the  bowl  edge  a  light 


180         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

bar  of  wood.  This  has,  at  each  end,  an  upright  pin. 
Normally  it  is  placed  in  the  north  and  south  line.  Hence, 
if  he  wishes  to  take  the  angular  bearing  of  the  sun  from 
the  north  and  south  line,  he  moves  this  bar  until  the 
shadows  of  the  pins  coincide  with  the  longitudinal  axis 
of  the  bar;  and  simply  notes  the  angle  between  the  final 
direction  of  the  bar  and  the  north  and  south  line  marked 
on  the  edge  of  his  bowl.  To  do  this  he  has  to  hold  the 
bowl  steady  with  one  hand,  as  he  describes,  and  move 
the  bar  around  its  center  with  the  other.  Then,  of  course, 
he  has  only  to  read  on  his  scale  the  angle  between  the  bar 
and  the  north  and  south  line,  and  he  has  the  solar  azi- 
muth. In  a  similar  way  he  can  find  the  direction  of  the 


PEREGRINUS'  FLOATING  COMPASS.1 

wind,  by  turning  his  bar  until  it  is  in  line  with  the  direc- 
tion in  which  the  wind  blows.  Or,  he  can  find  the 
azimuth  of  the  moon,  or  a  star,  by  placing  his  bar  in  the 
direction  of  the  heavenly  body.  Of  course  it  is  only  a 
step  beyond  this,  and  one  that  was  probably  fully  known 
to  him,  to  place  the  same  bar  in  a  line  fore-and-aft  the 
ship,  and  then  his  instrument  would  show  the  course  of 
the  vessel. 

The  evolution  of  this  instrument  from  the  astrolabe  and 
the  old  floating  compass  is  obvious  ;  but  Peregrinus  is  not 
contented  with  it,  and  now  he  proceeds  further,  and,  for 

1  From  Bertelli,  cit.  sup. 


PEREGRINUS'    COMPASS.  l8l 

the  first  time,  produces  the  pivoted  compass.  The  floating 
bowl  and  the  large  vessel  of  water  are  abolished,  and  in 
place  of  them  there  is  the  ordinary  circular  compass-box 
of  to-day.  Its  edges  are  marked  as  those  of  the  bowl  were 
— with  the  degrees  of  the  circle.  It  is  covered  with  a 
plate  of  glass.  In  the  centre  of  the  instrument,  and 
stepped  in  the  glass  cover  and  in  the  bottom  of  the  box,  is 
a  pivot,  through  which  passes  the  compass  needle,  now  no 
longer  an  ovoid  lodestone,  but  a  true  needle  of  steel  or  iron. 
Then,  at  right  angles  to  this  needle  is  another  needle, 
which,  curiously  enough,  he  says  is  to  be  made  of  silver  or 
copper.  Pivoted  above  the  glass  cover  is  an  azimuth  bar, 
as  before,  with  sight  pins  at  the  ends.  Now,  he  says, 
you  are  to  magnetize  the  needle  by  means  of  the  lodestone 


PEREGRINUS'  PIVOTED  COMPASS. 


in  the  usual  way,  so  that  it  will  point  north  and  south  ; 
and  then  the  azimuth  bar  is  to  be  turned  on  its  centre  so 
as  to  be  directed  toward  the  sun  or  heavenly  bodies,  and  in 
this  way,  of  course,  the  azimuth  is  easily  measured.  In 
fact,  the  device  is  the  azimuth  compass  of  the  present 
time.  "By  means  of  this  instrument, "  says  Peregrinus, 
"you  may  direct  your  course  towards  cities  and  islands 
and  all  other  parts  of  the  world,  either  on  land  or  at  sea, 
provided  you  are  acquainted  with  the  longitudes  and  lati- 
tudes of  those  places."  Or,  in  other  words,  find  the  posi- 
tion in  latitude  and  longitude  of  the  place  whither  you 
wish  to  proceed,  which  is  obviously  the  first  thing  neces- 
sary ;  note  the  direction  of  that  place  from  the  place 

1  From  Bertelli,  cit.  sup. 


182 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 


where  you  are,  and  by  means  of  the  compass  as  he  de- 
scribes it  you  have  simply  to  follow  the  course  you  have 
plotted.  There  would  not  be  any  difficulty  in  steering  a 
modern  ocean  steamer  by  means  of  Peregrinus's  compass, 
and  in  exactly  the  same  way. 

After  the  time  of  Peregrinus,  as  we  shall  see,  the  com- 
pass card  was  invented,  and  all  of  the  thirty-two  points 
of  the  compass  (beginning  with  north,  and  thence  pass- 


PEREGRINUS'  COMPASS. 


ing  in  order  to  north  by  east,  north  northeast,  northeast 
by  north,  northeast,  northeast  by  east,  and  so  on)  were 
named. 

The  presence  of  the  little  needle  of  copper  or  silver 
which  Peregrinus  thrusts  through  the  pivot  at  right 
angles  to  the  iron  needle  is  a  matter  of  curious  interest. 
Peregrinus  does  not  say  why  he  uses  it,  nor  what  purpose 
he  expected  it  to  serve.  Probably  it  was  intended  merely 
to  indicate  the  east  and  west  points  and  made  of  non-mag- 

1  From  the  Vatican  Codex  of  Peregrinus'  Letter.  This  is  apparently 
intended  as  a  plain  view  of  the  floating  compass. 


PEREGRINUS'    MOTOR.  183 

netic  metal  so  as  not  to  interfere  with  the  magnetic  needle. 
Yet  the  currents  generated  in  a  non-magnetic  conductor 
moved  in  a  field  of  force  cause  it  seemingly  to  meet  resist- 
ance as  if  the  field  contained  some  retarding  medium,  so 
that  a  copper  bar  or  disk  has  been  applied  to  the  needle 
of  a  modern  galvanometer  to  utilize  this  retarding  effect 
to  prevent  undue  vibration  of  that  needle.  The  non-mag- 
netic needle  in  Peregrinus'  compass  may  have  had  the 
same  effect.  Its  retarding  influence  might  not  be  sufficient 
to  interfere  with  the  impressed  force  of  the  earth's  magnet- 
ism upon  the  iron  needle,  and  yet  enough  to  check  the 
vibrations  of  the  latter  due  to  inertia ;  so  that  Peregrinus 
may  thus  have  unwittingly  stumbled  upon  a  phenomenon 
the  discovery  of  which  belongs  to  recent  years. 

The  last  chapter  of  this  famous  letter  relates  to  the 
supposed  perpetual  motion  for  the  understanding  of  which, 
by  his  friend  Sigerus,  all  of  these  discoveries  have  been 
made  and  described.  We  have  no  contemporary  record 
of  any  earlier  attempt  to  construct  a  self-moving  ma- 
chine, although  Peregrinus  in  the  very  beginning  says  that 
others  have  vainly  tried  to  make  them.  The  description 
which  he  presents  of  his  own  conception  is  incomprehen- 
sible :  and  in  this  respect  it  is  the  prototype  and  exemplar 
of  all  the  subsequent  so-called  elucidations  of  the  myster- 
ious and  power-generating  "motors"  which  have  been 
devised  since  his  day.  It  had  a  ring  of  silver,  which  he 
rendered  light  by  perforating  it  in  various  places.  This 
he  supported  in  some  way  so  that  it  would  rotate  on  its 
center.  In  the  ring  he  arranged  a  series  of  iron  teeth,  the 
sides  of  which  were  at  different  inclinations,  something 
after  the  fashion  of  the  teeth  of  a  ratchet  wheel.  The 
magnet  was  placed  at  the  extremity  of  a  radial  arm  dip- 
posed  within  the  ring,  with  its  end  close  to  the  teeth. 
The  magnet  was  fixed.  The  description  of  the  operation 
is  unintelligible,  but  presumably  Peregrinus  expected  that 
the  magnet  would  draw  the  prominent  portion  of  each 
tooth  to  itself,  and  then  the  momentum  of  the  wheel  would 


184         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

carry  the  tooth  beyond  the  magnet,  and  then  the  magnet 
would  attract  the  protruding  portion  of  the  next  succes- 
sive tooth,  which  he  probably  imagined  would  be  brought 
nearer  to  it  than  would  the  rapidly-retreating  face  of  the 
tooth  which  had  just  passed.  He  states  that  the  tooth 
came  alternately  to  the  north  and  the  south  portion  of  the 
magnet,  and  there  was  alternately  attracted  and  repelled ; 
but  the  pictures  of  the  machine  which  appear  in  the  vari- 
ous old  manuscript  copies  of  the  letter  do  not  accord  with 
this  explanation.  He  also  adds  a  small  ball,  which  falls 
from  one  tooth  to  the  other  as  the  wheel  rotates;  and  possi- 
bly he  supposed  that  the  movement  of  this  ball  would  add 
something  to  the  momentum  of  the  wheel.  Of  course  the 
contrivance  never  could  have  worked.  But  then,  paper 
inventions  often  have  that  failing,  and  a  large  and  goodly 
company  of  imitators,  walking  in  Peregrinus'  footsteps, 
are  even  now  constantly  finding  this  out.  The  law  which 
asserts  that  two  and  two  make  four,  and  no  more,  at  all 
times,  and  in  all  places,  and  that  it  is  not  given  to  man  to 
create  anything  whatever,  has  never  been  suspended  in 
favor  of  any  mechanism,  no  matter  how  expensive  or  in- 
genious,— not  even  when  it  meets  the  approval  of  persons 
of  superior  consequence,  financial  and  otherwise,  in  the 
community.  Not  having  fully  realized  this  fact  ourselves 
at  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  we  may  perhaps  look 
with  some  lenience  upon  the  similar  misapprehension  of 
Peregrinus  six  hundred  years  ago. 

Let  me  now  recapitulate  the  foregoing  remarkable 
achievements.  Peregrinus  discovered  and  differentiated 
the  poles  of  the  magnet.  He  revealed  the  law  that  unlike 
magnetic  poles  mutually  attract.  He  showed  how  to 
detect  the  magnetic  poles  and  demonstrated  that  in  even- 
part  or  fragment  of  a  divided  magnet  the  two  poles  persist. 
He  proved  that  not  only  is  the  iron  needle  attracted  by 
the  lodestone,  but  that  it  will  assume  definite  inclined  or 
angular  positions  when  brought  into  proximity  thereto. 
Thus  he,  for  the  first  time,  disclosed  the  state  of  strain 


PEREGRINUS1    DISCOVERIES.  185 

and  stress  existing  in  the  medium  surrounding  the  mag- 
net, which,  acting  upon  the  light  needle,  compelled  it  to 
set  itself  in  the  direction  of  lines  of  force  proceeding  from 
the  stone.  Thus  he  first  exhibited  the  condition  of  the 
magnetic  field.  He  saw,  though  dimly,  that  the  directive 
quality  of  the  freely-suspended  lodestone  depended,  not 
alone  upon  some  inherent  virtue  of  the  stone,  but  upon  an 
external  influence  acting  upon  it — an  influence  which  he 
regarded  as  emanating  from  the  celestial  sphere.  He  found 
the  position  of  the  poles  on  a  globular  magnet,  and  recog- 
nized the  magnetic  meridians  upon  its  surface.  He  first 
perceived  the  correct  way  of  measuring  magnetic  strength. 
He  discovered  the  mutability  of  the  magnetic  poles,  and 
that  the  poles  of  a  weaker  magnet  could  be  reversed  or 
obliterated  by  the  inductive  action  upon  them  of  a  stronger 
magnet. 

He  invented  the  first  mariner's  compass  which  could  be 
constantly  used  to  steer  by  as  we  steer  by  it  now,  instead 
of  being  employed  merely  to  indicate  the  diiection  of  the 
Pole  star  ;  the  first  compass  having  a  fiducial  or  "lubber's" 
point  and  a  graduated  scale  :  the  first  compass  capable  of 
being  used  to  measure  azimuth  or  bearing :  the  first  com- 
pass having  a  pivoted  needle — the  prototype  of  all  electri- 
cal measuring  instruments  in  which  such  an  indicator  is 
employed  :  and,  if  he  did  not  actually  recognize  the  re- 
tarding effect  of  a  magnetic  field  upon  a  non-magnetic  body 
(such  as  silver  or  copper),  and  combine  such  non-magnetic 
metal  with  the  needle  of  his  instrument  in  order  to  dampen 
or  check  its  natural  vibrations  and  so  to  bring  it  quickly 
to  rest  at  its  indication,  he  at  least  perceived  that  the  mag- 
netic field  had  110  directive  force  upon  such  a  body,  and 
that  therefore  it  could  be  employed  as  an  additional  index 
under  the  control  of  the  magnetized  needle.  Finally, 
he  first  suggested  the  conversion  of  magnetic  (electric) 
energy  into  mechanical  energy  in  an  organized  machine 
and  to  do  useful  work  ;  and  thus  he  proposed  the  first 
magnetic  (electric)  motor. 


1 86         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

That  even  such  remarkable  discoveries  as  these  should 
have  remained  unknown  or  have  been  forgotten  for  so 
long  a  period  is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  intellectual 
condition  of  the  times.  Education  was  restricted  to  the 
few,  and  mainly  to  members  of  the  religious  orders,  who, 
knowing  little  or  nothing  concerning  maritime  matters, 
would  be  unlikely  to  appreciate  improvements  in  the 
compass  or  experiments  upon  it.  The  contents  of  the 
learned  treatises  of  the  time  are  not  to  be  regarded  as 
common  knowledge,  for  manuscripts  were  costly  and  rare, 
and  the  masses  of  the  people  could  not  read  them  in  the 
vernacular,  much  less  in  L,atin.  Frequently  all  that  was 
known  relative  to  a  certain  subject  was  confined  to  one 
author  or  group  of  authors,  or  to  some  one  town  or  region. 
This  sort  of  isolation  constantly  occurred  in  scientific 
matters  not  taught  in  the  universities.  Intercommuni- 
cation by  letter  was  difficult,  instruction  in  the  schools  was 
mainly  by  lecture,  and  the  universal  reverence  for  Aristotle 
caused  all  novelties  which  were  not  accounted  for  by  his 
teachings  to  be  slightingly  considered  if  not  ignored. 
Undoubtedly,  also,  Sigerus  regarded  Peregrinus'  informa- 
tion as  a  secret  confided  to  his  care,  and  thus  general 
knowledge  of  it  might  have  been  delayed  indefinitely. 
And,  finally,  when  it  came  to  light,  people  who  tested 
the  perpetual  motion  apparatus  and  found  it  a  delusion 
naturally  would  discredit  all  other  statements. 

Of  the  later  history  of  this  extraordinary  man  nothing 
is  known:  not  even  the  lavish  encomiums  of  Roger  Bacon 
availed  to  save  him  from  oblivion,  for  such  was  the  fate 
of  Bacon  himself.1  The  few  manuscript  copies  which  had 
been  made  of  the  famous  Letter  lay  buried  in  the  monas- 
teries for  nearly  three  hundred  years. 

1  The  Opus  Mr  jus  was  not  published  until  1733,  nor  the  Opus  Minus 
and  Opus  Tertium  until  1859,  and  not  a  single  doctor  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  mentions  Bacon  either  for  blame  or  praise. 
Charles,  E.:  Roger  Bacon,  sa  vie,  etc.  Paris,  1861,  p.  31. 


FLAVIO   GIOJA.  187 

There  are  two  well  known  features  of  the  modern  com- 
pass which  Peregrinus'  instrument  lacks;  and  these  are  of 
importance.  The  needle  passes  through  a  vertical  pivot 
shaft,  so  that  the  pivot  and  needle  turn  together,  while 
the  modern  compass  needle  rotates  on  a  fixed  point ;  and, 
besides  the  scale  marked  in  degrees  around  the  circle,  the 
modern  instrument  has  also  the  so-called  card  on  which 
appears  a  species  of  star  of  32  points,  each  having  its 
appropriate  name,  as  N.  E.,  N.  N.  E.,  S.  W.,  W.  S.  W., 
and  so  on.  Almost  the  first  piece  of  nautical  learning 
acquired  by  the  young  sailor  is  the  learning  of  the  names 
of  these  points  of  the  compass  in  their  order,  or,  as  it 
is  commonly  termed,  "boxing  the  compass."  The  older 
seamen  of  to-day  still  steer  by  the  same  points;  but  the 
modern  fashion  is  to  go  back  to  the  idea  of  Peregrinus 
and  to  lay  a  course  from  north  so  many  degrees  east,  for 
example,  instead  of  designating  it  by  the  arbitrary  name 
of  the  point  toward  which  the  vessel  is  steered.  The  star 
itself  has  been  known  for  centuries  as  the  Rose  of  the 
Winds,  and  it  is  likewise  inscribed  on  very  old  charts  to 
show  the  direction  of  the  various  points.  The  earliest 
maps  on  which  it  has  been  found  are  Genoese,  and  date 
from  1318,  and  hence  it  has  been  supposed  that  both  the 
star  and  the  pivoted  needle  were  invented  by  Mediter- 
ranean rather  than  by  northern  mariners,  at  some  period 
between  the  time  of  Peregrinus'  letter  and  the  above- 
named  year. 

The  suggestion  that  any  part  of  the  compass  is  of  Italian 
origin  recalls  at  once  the  man  whom  the  world,  for  scores 
of  years,  believed  to  be  the  inventor  of  the  entire  instru- 
ment, and  whom  many  modern  encyclopaedists,  and  Italian 
writers  generally,  still  delight  as  such  to  honor.  Flavio 
Gioja,1  or  Giri,  or  Gira  (for  the  name  is  in  doubt),  lived 

*See  Nuova  Enciclopsedia  Italiana.  Boccardi,  Turin,  1880.  The  most 
elaborate  arguments  in  favor  of  Gioja's  claims  are  given  by  G.  Grimaldi 
in  Memorie  dell'  Acad.  Etrusc.  di  Cortona.  See  also  Brechmann  :  Hist. 
Pandectarum  Amalphi,  Diss.  i,  No.  22.  Inter  Scriptores  Rerum  Neapo- 


l88         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

at  Pasitano  near  Amalfi  at  the  beginning  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  His  fame  rests  on  the  line  of  Anthony  of 
Bologna,  who  lived  later  in  the  same  century: 

Prima  dedit  nautis  usum  magnetis  Amalphis. 
(Amalfi  first  gave  to  seamen  the  use  of  the  magnet.) 

Of  GiojVs  life  nothing  definite  appears  to  be  known, 
and  even  the  line  quoted  above  does  not  ascribe  to  him 
the  invention  of  the  compass,  but  only  its  introduction. 
Flavius  Blondus  speaks  merely  of  the  "rumor"  of  the 
Amalfitans  being  "entitled  to  the  credit  of  the  magnet 
by  the  assistance  of  which  navigators  are  directed  to  the 
North  Pole."1  But,  long  before  Gioja's  day,  the  Italian 
vessels  from  Venice,  Genoa  and  other  ports  had  been 
transporting  Crusaders  by  thousands  to  the  Holy  Land, 
and  making  trips  with  a  regularity  which,  since  the  com- 
pass was  fully  known,  leaves  little  doubt  that  they  de- 
pended upon  that  instrument  to  some  extent;  although  the 
pilots  of  that  time,  after  the  fashion  of  their  ancestors, 
kept  close  to  shore.  Peregrinus,  as  we  have  seen,  had  fully 
pointed  out  that  vessels  could  be  steered  from  one  place  to 
another  by  means  of  his  pivoted  needle  when  the  latitude 
and  longitude  of  the  objective  point  was  known  ;  but  that 
description,  it  must  be  remembered,  was  buried  in  a  private 
letter.  Gioja  seems  to  have  re-discovered  this  and  hence 
to  have  taught  the  adventurous  sailors  of  the  Mediterranean 
that  the  compass  could  be  used,  not  only  to  find  the  Pole 
star,  but  directly  to  steer  by.  In  so  doing  he  earned  a 
title  to  fame  but  little  inferior  to  that  which  he  would 
have  merited  had  he  been  the  original  inventor  of  the 
apparatus.  It  was  probably  Gioja  also  who  first  added  to 
the  instrument  the  compass  card  or  Rose  of  the  Winds, 
of  which  the  Etruscans,  ages  before,  had  designed  the  pat- 
tern— one  doubtless  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  their 

litarum,  Napoli,  1735,  p.  935.  Also  McPherson  :  Annals  of  Commerce, 
Lond.,  1805,  Vol.  I.,  365. 

'Italia  Illustrata.     Basle,  1559,  420,  g. 


THE  ROSE  OF  THE  WINDS.  189 

ornaments,  and  bearing  a  resemblance  to  the  Rose  of  the 
Winds,  which,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  seems  too 
close  in  detail  to  make  denial  of  some  relationship  between 
the  two  designs  altogether  reasonable.  The  invention  of 
the  needle  turning  on  a  fixed  pivot  seems  to  follow  that 
of  the  card  as  a  matter  of  course  ;  for,  by  that  means,  the 
needle  could  be  brought  much  nearer  to  the  surface  of  the 
card  below  it  than  if  it  were  on  the  long  pivot  shaft  which 
Peregrinus  employed  to  bring  it  near  to  the  graduated 
edge  of  the  bowl  which  was  above  it. 

I  have  already  stated  that  the  first  authentic  descrip- 
tion of  the  Chinese  marine  compass  is  of  later  date  than 
the  appearance  of  the  instrument  in  Northern  Europe. 
It  is  found  in  a  work1  known  to  have  been  written  in  1297 
under  the  reign  of  the  Mongol  Emperor  Timour  Khan, 
and  is  therefore  after  the  letter  of  Peregrinus.  In  this 
the  sailing  directions  for  ships  are  indicated  by  the  rhumbs 
or  diagonal  lines  of  the  compass  card. 

It  is  undoubtedly  true  that,  at  this  time,  the  Chinese 
were  making  voyages  of  great  extent  and  duration.  That 
famous  traveler,  Marco  Polo,  (whom  Gilbert,2  and  other 
writers  on  the  magnet  in  the  ijth  and  i8th  centuries, 
erroneously  insist  first  brought  the  knowledge  of  the  com- 
pass from  China  to  Europe)  describes  a  great  expedition 
from  the  Pei-ho  river,  which  occupied  three  months  in 
making  the  journey  to  Java,  and  afterwards  wandered  for 
eighteen  months  in  Indian  seas  before  reaching  uthe  place 
of  their  destination  in  the  territory  of  King  Arghun." 
Polo  also  records  the  enterprises  of  Kubla  Khan  against 
Madagascar. 

1  Chrestomathie  Chinoise.     Paris,  1833,  p.  21. 

2  De  Magnate,   1600,  p.  4.     There  is  not  a  word  in  Polo's   narrative 
which  describes  the  compass,  and  no  evidence  that  he  imparted  other- 
wise any  information  on  the  subject.     Furthermore  his  travels  occurred 
between  1271  and  1295,  and  hence  had  not  begun  in  1260,  the  date  when 
Gilbert  says  he  learned  of  the  compass  from  the  Chinese.     Gilbert  also 
speaks  of  Polo  as  Paulus  Venetus,  which  is  an  error,  the  latter  being  the 
name  commonly  given,  not  to  Polo  (Messer  Million),  but  t'o  Fra  Paolo 
vSarpi. 


190         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

But  just  what  sort  of  compass  the  Chinese  then  had,  even 
so  strong  an  advocate  in  their  behalf  as  Klaproth  fails  to 
discover.  He  quotes  from  a  work  of  the  i6th  century  a 
description  of  the  floating  compass  in  common  use  before 
the  time  of  Peregrinus,  and  goes  to  Dr.  Barrow  for  the 
details  of  their  pivoted  needle  compass;  so  that,  while  we 
may  infer  that,  with  characteristic  conservatism,  they  may 
have  passed  down  these  instruments  unaltered  from  some 
far  distant  period,  there  is  still  that  fatal  absence  of  direct 
proof  which  renders  all  early  Chinese  invention  open  to 
more  or  less  suspicion.  That  the  deviation  of  the  needle 
from  the  astronomical  meridian — or,  in  other  words,  its 
variation — was  well  known  to  the  Chinese  long  before  that 
phenomenon  had  been  remarked  in  Europe  is  sufficiently 
well  established;  and  therefore  I  shall  not  devote  space  to 
the  long  discussions  based  on  the  assumption  of  its 
European  invention  which  fill  the  treatises.  A  spurious 
addition  to  a  Leyden  codex  of  Peregrinus'  letter,  in  which 
the  variation  is  mentioned,  has  led  many  writers  to  credit 
Peregrinus  with  its  discovery.  But  he  knew  nothing  of 
it,  and  if,  as  Bertelli  concludes,  the  variation  in  Europe 
was  in  fact  zero  at  his  time,  there  was  nothing  to  direct 
his  attention  to  it.  The  first  practical  knowledge  among 
European  people  of  the  fact  that  the  needle  is  not  strictly 
true  to  the  earth's  geographic  pole  belongs  to  a  later  period 
than  that  now  under  review. 

During  the  following  century  little  was  added  to  the 
magnetic  discoveries  of  Peregrinus,  nor  was  the  compass 
as  he  and  Gioja  left  it  materially  improved.  The  mention 
of  the  magnet  and  of  the  needle  became  more  frequent, 
philosophers,  poets,  and  theologians  dealing  with  the  sub- 
ject with  the  same  catholicity  as  in  the  past,  and  finding 
in  it  an  unfailing  source  of  supply  for  simile  and  meta- 
phor. 

Raymond  Lully,1  metaphysician  and   monk,  entangles 

*De  Contemplatione.  Capmany  :  Memories  Historias  Sobre  la  Mar- 
ina. Madrid,  1792,  I,  73. 


THE   COMPASS   CARD.  191 

the  purely  physical  facts  of  magnetic  attraction  with  his 
occult  teachings,  and  does  this  at  so  early  a  date  (1297) 
that  books  have  been  written  to  advocate  his  right  to  the 
credit  for  Peregrinus'  achievements.  Dante  in  the  Para- 
diso 1  speaks  of 

' '  a  voice 

That  made  me  seem  like  needle  to  the  star 
In  turning  to  its  whereabouts," 

which,  if  recording  no  discovery,  at  least  led  to  the  first 
mention  of  the  pivoted  compass  card  itself  carrying  the 
needle;  which  is  the  form  now  used,  wherever  recourse  is 
not  had  to  the  still  older  notion  of  the  floating  magnet. 
Da  Buti,2  the  commentator  on  the  great  Florentine,  writ- 
ing in  1380,  tells  us  that  "the  navigators  have  a  compass 
in  the  middle  of  which  is  pivoted  a  wheel  of  light  paper 
which  turns  on  its  pivot,  and  that  on  this  wheel  the  needle 
is  fixed  and  the  star  (Rose  of  the  Winds)  painted." 

In  the  north,  Barbour,  writing  in  1375,  says  that  in  1306, 
King  Robert,  of  Scotland,  in  crossing  from  Arran  to  Car- 
rick,  steered  by  a  fire  on  the  shore;  for  he  u  na  nedill  had 
na  stone;"  and  the  adoption  of  the  Mediterranean  compass 
seems  to  have  been  long  delayed,  for  not  until  1391  does 
Chaucer3  mention  the  substitution  of  the  horizon  circle 
divided  into  thirty-two  points  in  place  of  twenty-four. 

NOTE. — The  text  which  I  have  followed  in  the  foregoing  epitome  of 
Peregrinus'  researches  is  the  one  which  Bertelli  Barnabita  has  prepared 
from  a  careful  collation  of  all  of  the  existing  manuscripts  of  the  letter. 
(Sopra  Pietro  Peregrine  di  Maricourt  e  la  sua  Epistola  de  Magnete. 
P.  D.  Timoteo  Bertelli  Barnabita,  Mem.  Prima.  Rome,  1868.  Sulla 
Epistola  di  Pietro  Peregrino  de  Maricourt  e  Sopra  Alcuni  Trovati,  etc. 
Mem.  Seconda  :  Bull,  di  Bib.  e  di  Storia  delle  Scienze.  Math,  e  Fisiche. 
Vol.  I.,  Jan.,  Mar.  and  April,  1868.) 

The  first  printed  edition  edited  by  Gasser  (Petri  Peregrini  Maricurtensis 
de  Magnete,  seu  rota  perpetui  motus  libellus.  *  *  Per  Achillem  P. 

1  Canto  XII.,  v.  28. 

2  Da  Buti,  Francesco:  Comment.  Sopra  la  Div.  Commedia.     Pisa,  1862. 

3  Treatise  on  the  Astrolabe.     Ed.  Skeat.     Early  Eng.  Hist.  Soc.     Lon- 
don, 1872. 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Gasserum,  L.  nunc  primum  promulgatus.  Augsburgi  in  Suevis,)  ap- 
peared iu  1558,  at  which  time  manuscript  copies  of  the  letter  were 
regarded  as  very  rare.  At  the  present  time,  several  codices  are  known 
to  exist — there  being  two  in  the  Vatican,  and  six  in  the  Bodleian 
Library  of  different  dates,  besides  others  elsewhere.  In  1562  the  material 
portion  of  the  work  was  stolen  by  John  Taisnier  (Opusculum  Perp.  Mem. 
Diguiss  De  Natura  Magnetis  et  ejus  effectibus.  *  *  Authore  Joanne 
Taisuierio  Haunonio,  etc.  Coloniae,  1562),  and  published  as  his  own  in  a 
treatise  on  the  Nature  of  the  Magnet  and  its  Effects.  The  only  English 
version  of  Peregrinus'  letter  is  a  translation  of  Taisnier's  work  by  one 
Richard  Eden,  which  seems  to  have  been  originally  printed  without 
date,  and  then  reprinted  m  1579  by  Richard  Jugge,  London. 

The  perpetual  motion  of  Peregrinus  was  also  copied  by  a  writer  of  the 
1 6th  century — Antonio  De  Fantis,  of  Treviso — and  to  him  the  invention 
cf  the  apparatus  is  most  commonly  ascribed  by  authors  subsequent  to 
Jerome  Cardan.  The  rotary  magnetic  sphere  of  Peregrinus  was  also 
plagiarized  by  Cornelius  van  Drebbel,  who,  in  his  letter  to  James  I.,  of 
England,  his  protector,  solemnly  avers  his  ability  to  construct  the  ap- 
paratus so  that  it  will  automatically  operate.  Cardan:  De  Varietale 
Rerum,  1553  lib.  9,  c.  48;  Vuecher:  Les  Secrets  et  Merveilles  de  Nature. 
Lyon,  1596,  912.  Cornelii  Drebbeli  Belgae  Epistola  ad  Sapient.  Bret. 
Monarchi.  Jacobum,  De  Perp.  Mobiles  Inventione.  Hamburg,  1628,  p. 
66.  The  possibility  of  Peregrinus'  apparatus  is  doubted  by  Gilbert  (De 
Magnete,  1600,  lib.  vi.,  c.  iv.),  and  denied  altogether  by  Galileo.  (Opera, 
Florence,  1842,  443-9.) 

In  the  beginning  of  the  present  century  a  mythical  person  was  in- 
vented, one  Peter  Adsiger,  and  to  him  a  few  facts,  which  some  one  had 
exhumed  from  the  old  manuscripts  or  the  Augsburg  edition  of  the  Let- 
ter, were  duly  credited ;  so  that,  for  a  long  time,  the  names  of  Peter 
Peregrinus  and  Peter  Adsiger  were  found  in  the  text-books  and  histories, 
and  so  appear  even  up  to  to-day.  But  the  name  "  Adsiger  "  was  simply 
a  translator's  blunder,  and  is  a  part  of  the  Latin  dedication  of  the  letter 
which  Peter  writes  to  Sigerus  (Ad  Sigerum).  On  such  small  errors  as 
this,  fame  too  often  depends. 

Some  question  has  been  raised  as  to  whether  certain  of  Peregrinus' 
discoveries  were  not  earlier  made  by  Dr.  Jean  de  St.  Amand,  who  was  a 
celebrated  physician  and  a  canon  of  the  cathedral  church  of  Tournay. 
He  lived  "after  the  year  1261,"  but  just  when  is  not  known.  He  seems 
to  have  been  merely  a  copyist  who  restates  Peregrinus'  conclusions  in 
an  obscure  way. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  revival  of  literature  throughout  Europe  was  every- 
where manifest  as  the  I4th  century  drew  to  its  end.  Gi- 
otto, Dante,  Petrarch,  Boccacio,  Chaucer,  Froissart,  Wicliffe 
— such  were  the  men  whose  great  works  both  mark  this 
period  and  serve  as  indices  of  the  directions  which  the 
newly-aroused  intellectual  forces  were  taking.  Yet  the 
rise  of  positive  science  was  none  the  less  steadily  continu- 
ing; before  it  the  dogmas  of  authority,  and  especially  those 
of  Aristotle,  were  as  steadily  weakening.  Meanwhile  the 
commercial  rivalry  between  Venice  and  Genoa,  the  great 
centers  of  Mediterranean  trade,  had  brought  the  spirit  of 
maritime  adventure  to  the  highest  pitch.  In  the  war  be- 
tween the  republics,  Genoa  had  been  worsted ;  and  the 
Venetians,  by  advantageous  treaties  with  the  oriental 
rulers,  had  established  trading  stations  in  the  East,  which 
gave  them  advantages  unattainable  to  their  competitors. 
The  narrative  of  Marco  Polo  of  the  prodigious  wealth  of 
the  far  distant  India,  had  inflamed  the  cupidity  of  his 
countrymen.  .  However  much  the  fathers  of  the  church 
might  assert  the  flatness  of  the  earth,  the  sailors  of  Genoa 
and  of  Amalfi  knew  to  the  contrary,  for  they  had  learned 
that  the  ship  which  vanished  beneath  the  brink  of  the 
horizon  was  neither  sunk  nor  lost,  and  that,  in  all  the 
seas  wherein  they  had  adventured,  the  quivering  needle 
was  a  safe  guide.  So  began,  in  Italy,  the  desire  to  sail, 
under  the  safeguard  of  the  compass  to  the  westward,  and 
thus  to  reach  the  golden  realm  of  Cathay. 

In  1450,  the  invention  of  printing  from  movable  types 
was  made,  and  with  this  means  of  communicating  and  in- 
fluencing opinion,  the  extension  of  knowledge  was  vast 
and  sudden.  Books  fell  four-fifths  in  price.  The  fruits  of 
'3  (193) 


194         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

the  new  education  and  of  the  rapid  spread  of  intelligence 
soon  began  to  appear. 

At  this  time  the  Italian  trade,  principally  Venetian, 
came  overland  from  India  by  way  of  the  Persian  Gulf  to 
the  Caspian  and  Mediterranean,  and  through  the  Red  Sea 
to  Egypt.  The  transhipments  were  many,  the  delays  seri- 
ous and  the  expense  of  carriage  enormous;  yet  the  Italian 
merchants  were  the  most  opulent  in  the  world.  The  ad- 
venturers of  Spain  and  Portugal  looked  upon  their  com- 
merce with  envy,  and  hungered  for  its  profits.  Meanwhile 
the  knowledge  of  the  compass  had  reached  the  Spanish  and 
Portuguese  mariners,  and  the  latter,  from  their  Atlantic 
ports,  had  begun  to  make,  by  its  aid,  voyages  upon  the 
Western  Ocean  longer  than  ever  before.  Their  audacity, 
however,  was  checked  by  their  superstition.  They  be- 
lieved in  a  region  of  fire  about  the  equator,  in  a  weedy  and 
entangling  sea  far  to  the  West,  and  in  the  certain  destruc- 
tion of  vessels  that  doubled  Cape  Bojador;  currents  bewild- 
ered them,  and  the  trade-winds  suggested  only  gales  always 
blowing  them  away  from  home.  Yet,  if  these  men  could 
be  got  to  steer  around  the  African  cape,  as  the  Egyptians 
had  done  ages  before,  it  was  certain  that  a  water-way  to 
India  would  thus  be  opened,  and  the  nation  to  which  they 
belonged  might  well  hope  to  wrest  from  the  proud  Vene- 
tians the  commercial  supremacy  which  made  all  Europe 
their  tributary/  So  thought  Prince  Henry  of  Portugal,  son 
of  John  the  First — Henry  the  Navigator — and,  thereupon, 
he  set  to  work  to  educate  the  sailors.  He  founded  a  naval 
college,  got  together  the  cosmographers  and  the  mariners 
and  the  artificers  skilled  in  instrument  making,  and  having 
corrected  the  charts,  and  improved  the  astrolabes  and  the 
compasses — the  last  more  especially — he  provided  the 
money  and  equipment  for  great  voyages.  Ultimately, 
under  this  stimulus,  the  Portuguese  doubled  Cape  Bojador, 
penetrated  to  the  tropics  and  found  there  no  deadly  heats, 
explored  the  African  coast  to  Cape  de  Verde,  and  sailed 
to  the  Azores,  passed  with  impunity  through  the  weedy 


CHRISTOPHER  COLUMBUS.  195 

terrors  of  the  Sargasso  Sea,  and  learned  to  lay  their  courses 
homeward  despite  the  trade-winds  and  the  currents. 

Such  was  the  first  great  work  of  the  magnet.  Henry 
died  in  1473,  with  the  object  of  his  ambition — the  opening 
of  the  water-route  to  India — unfulfilled.  Yet  all  Europe 
knew  of  his  achievements,  and  the  Italians  better  than  all 
others,  for  their  commercial  existence  was  at  stake.  In 
Genoa,  the  interest  was  extreme,  for  she  saw  the  oppor- 
tunity, through  her  mariners,  not  only  of  surpassing  the 
hardy  Portuguese,  but  of  avenging  the  crushing  humilia- 
tion which  she  had  received  at  the  hands  of  Venice.  But, 
in  the  long  and  wordy  discussions  which  ensued  among  her 
learned  men,  in  their  wanderings  amid  the  labyrinths  of 
what  Aristotle  said,  or  Cosmos  Indicopleustes  asserted,  or 
Augustine  and  Lactantius  thought,  the  golden  hour  passed 
by,  and  from  the  little  .harbor  of  Palos,  in  Spain,  and  not 
from  the  great  port  of  Geneva  la  Superba,  sailed  the  ships 
which  carried  forth  the  visionary  son  of  the  wool-comber 
and  brought  back  the  Admiral  of  the  Indies. 

Columbus,  as  is  well  known,  went  to  Lisbon  in  1470, 
where  he  supported  himself  by  chart-making  in  the  inter- 
vals of  voyages  to  the  Guinea  coast.  He  was  well  aware 
of  the  advances  in  navigation  which  Prince  Henry's  mar- 
iners had  made,  and,  in  fact,  had  married  the  daughter  of 
one  of  the  ablest  of  the  Portuguese  sailors.  From  the 
Imago  Mundi  of  Cardinal  Pedro  d'Aliaco,  written  in  1410 
and  published  in  1490,  he  culled  the  opinions  of  Aristotle, 
Strabo  and  Seneca,  on  the  possibility  of  reaching  India 
by  sailing  to  the  westward.  D'Aliaco's  scientific  knowl- 
edge came  chiefly  from  the  Etymologies  of  St.  Isidore,  but 
the  particular  part  of  his  work  which,  as  the  annotations 
in  Columbus'  own  hand  on  the  copy  now  in  Seville  show, 
seemingly  most  influenced  the  discoverer,  was  plagiarized 
from  the  Opus  Majus  of  Roger  Bacon.1 

1  Major,  R.  H.,  F.  S.  A.:  Select  Letters  of  Columbus.  Hakluyt  Soc., 
London,  1870.  Introduct.,  p.  xlvii.  Humboldt:  Ex.  Critique.  Vol.  i., 
pp.  64,  70. 


196         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  knowledge  which  Columbus  had  of  the  compass 
and  of  the  magnet,  therefore,  rested  on  both  practical  and 
theoretical  grounds.  Of  the  compass,  his  early  voyages 
had  taught  him  even  more  than  the  ordinary  use.  In  a 
letter  to  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  dated  1495,  he  describes 
how,  having  been  sent  by  King  Rene  to  Tunis  to  capture 
a  galley,  he  found,  on  arriving  at  the  island  of  San  Pedro, 
in  Sardinia,  so  powerful  a  force  arrayed  to  meet  him  that 
his  crew  became  alarmed  and  insisted  on  returning  to 
Marseilles  for  reinforcements,  uupon  which,"  he  con- 
tinues, "being  unable  to  force  their  inclination,  I  yielded 
to  their  wish,  and,  having  first  changed  the  points  of  the 
compass,  spread  all  sail,  for  it  was  evening,  and  at  day- 
break we  were  within  the  Cape  of  Carthagina,  while  all 
believed,  for  a  certainty,  they  were  going  to  Marseilles."1 

This  is  of  a  piece  with  his  alteration  of  the  reckoning 
of  the  ship's  progress  during  his  first  voyage  to  the  New 
World.  It  not  only  shows  his  familiarity  with  the  com- 
pass, but  incidentally  furnishes  an  instance  of  that  very 
tampering  with  the  instrument  against  which  the  severe 
provision  already  noted  in  the  Laws  of  Wisbuy  was  di- 
rected. 

If  Columbus  was  not  familiar  with  Roger  Bacon's  work, 
he  at  least  had  learned,  somehow,  of  the  theory  of  the 
magnet,  in  which  both  Bacon  and  Peregrinus  believed  ; 
namely,  that  the  magnet  was  not  controlled  by  the  North 
star,  but  by  all  points  of  the  heavens  ;  for,  in  the  history 
written  by  his  son,  he  is  expressly  credited  with  this  idea. 

The  figure  of  the  great  Admiral  is  one  of  especial  inter- 
est in  this  research,  because  of  the  remarkable  magnetic 
discoveries  which  he  made.  As  this  subject  appears  to 
have  been  confused  by  certain  of  his  biographers,  seme 
detailed  consideration  of  it  is  necessary. 

A  geographical  meridian  of  the  earth  passes,  as  we 
know,  through  any  given  point  of  observation  and  the 
earth's  geographical  poles.  The  compass  needle  may 

1  Major:  Select  Letters,  cit.  sup.,  p.  xxxvi. 


COLUMBUS'  DISCOVERY  OF  VARIATION.  197 

stand  longitudinally  in  the  direction  of  this  meridian.  It 
then  points  to  the  geographical  north  pole,  and  is  said  to 
have  no  variation.  But  if  the  north-pointing  end  lies  to 
the  east  or  west  of  the  meridian,  then  it  is  said  to  have 
east  or  west  variation.  This  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to 
allow  for  in  steering  a  ship,  or  in  running  a  line  in  survey- 
ing land,  or  in  laying  out  a  railway.  The  variation  is  not 
the  same  at  all  points  on  the  earth,  nor  is  it  constant  at 
any  one  point.  Therefore,  there  is  a  variation  of  the  varia- 
tion, which  is  secular  in  that  it  occurs  over  very  long 
periods,  besides  being  annual  and  even  diurnal.  Besides 
these  changes  there  are  irregular  variations  or  perturba- 
tions, due  to  disturbances  in  the  earth's  magnetic  field, 
which  need  not  here  be  considered. 

As  I  have  already  stated,  the  Chinese  knew,  certainly  as 
early  as  the  nth  century  and  probably  before,  that  the 
needle  did  not  point  to  the  true  north  and  south,  an<3  they 
constructed  their  land  compasses  to  allow  for  the  angle  of 
discrepancy.  But  there  appears  to  be  no  record  showing 
that  any  European  ever  recognized  the  variation  of  the 
needle  as  a  cosmical  phenomenon  before  Columbus  did 
so  on  his  memorable  voyage.1 

Now,  briefly,  what  happened  to  Columbus  was  this.  On 
his  first  voyage  to  America,  on  the  evening  of  September 

1  True,  much  has  been  written  (See  Libri:  Hist,  des  Sci.  Math,  en  Italic. 
Paris,  1830,  vol.  ii.,  71.  Formaleoni:  Saggio  Sulla  Nautica  Antica  del 
Veneziaui.  Venice,  1783,  51-2.  Humboldt:  Cosmos,  v.  Irving:  Life  of 
Columbus)  concerning  an  old  chart  made  in  1436  by  Andrea  Blanco,  and 
now  in  the  Library  of  St.  Mark  in  Venice,  upon  which  appears  a  figure 
supposed  to  represent  the  points  of  the  compass  with  a  correction  for 
variation.  This,  however,  Bertelli  (Sulla  Epistola  di  P.  Peregrine. 
Rome,  1868,  niem.  iii.,  77.),  has  investigated  and  finds  no  suggestion  of 
variation  present— the  correction  simply  being  that  necessary  to  apply  to 
the  courses  of  a  ship  sailing  on  rhumbs  of  the  compass  (as  N.  E.,  N.  W.) 
to  keep  clear  of  the  loxodromic  curve,  or  endless  spiral  due  to  the  cur- 
vature angle  between  the  earth  and  the  meridian,  which  would  never 
lead  to  any  determined  point.  I  shall  not  take  space  here  to  repeat  Ber- 
telli's  demonstration  of  this  error;  while  the  other  anticipations  upon 
which  he  comments  are  merely  inferences  which  he  easily  disproves. 


198         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

13,  1492,  the  needle  varied  to  the  northwest  half  a  point, 
and  at  dawn  nearly  half  a  point  further.  From  this  he 
states  that  he  knew  that  it  was  not  adjusted  to  the  Pole  star, 
but  to  some  other  fixed  and  invisible  point,  the  variation 
of  which  no  one  had,  up  to  that  time,  observed,  and  hence, 
on  the  third  day,  having  sailed  about  one  hundred  leagues 
further,  he  wondered  because  he  observed  the  needle  come 
back  to  the  star.  On  September  lyth  the  pilots,  having 
measured  the  sun's  amplitude,1  found  the  needles  were  a 
whole  point  in  error;  and  then  the  seamen  were  greatly 
terrified,  for  they  believed  that  their  trusted  guide  had 
failed  them.  This  is  the  time  when  Columbus  is  said  to 
have  invented  the  fiction  of  the  movement  of  the  Pole 
star  in  order  to  quiet  their  apprehensions,  the  personal 
narrative  in  Martin's  collection  stating  uthe  Admiral  dis- 
covered the  cause,  and  ordered  them  to  take  the  amplitude 
the  next  morning,  when  they  found  that  the  needles  were 
true.  The  cause  was  that  the  star  moved  from  its  place, 
while  the  needle  remained  stationary."2 

As  Peregrinus  had  pointed  out  this  movement  of  the 
Pole  star  more  than  two  hundred  years  before,  and  Prince 
Henry's  College  had  probably  sifted  all  theories  of  the 
compass,  including  the  notion  that  the  needle  pointed  to 
the  pole  of  the  heavens  and  not  to  the  Pole  star,  it  is 
probable  that  Columbus  simply  stated  a  fact  as  he  under- 
stood it,  and  in  that  respect  invented  nothing.  Of  course, 
to  the  ignorant  seamen,  any  reasonable  explanation  would 

1  The  sun's  true  amplitude  is  the  number  of  degrees  that  the  sun  rises 
or  sets  to  the  northward  or  southward  of  the  east  or  west  points  of  the 
horizon.  As  the  sun  has  no  variation,  by  means  of  such  an  observation 
the  variation  between  the  true  north  and  the  magnetic  north  as  indicated 
by  the  compass  can  be  determined. 

aHist.  del  S.  D.  Fernando  Colombo  *  *  *  dei  fatti  del  1'Ammiraglio  D. 
C.  Colombo,  suo  padre,  etc.  Venice,  1621,  cap.  xvii. 

Martin:  Coleccion  de  los  Viajes  y  Descubrimientos  que  hiceron  por 
mar  los  Espanoles  desde  fines  del  Siglo  XV.  Madrid,  1825. 

Kettel,  S.:  Personal  Narrative  of  the  First  Voyage  of  Columbus  to 
America.  Boston,  1827. 


COLUMBUS'    DISCOVERY   OF   VARIATION.  199 

have  sufficed.  Columbus  also  believed  that  the  lodestone 
was  influenced  by  the  different  parts  of  the  heavens,  so  that 
if  the  needle  were  touched  with  one  part  of  the  stone  it 
would  point  east,  with  another  west,  and  so  on;  and  in  fact 
he  says  that  those  who  rub  the  needles  cover  the  stone 
with  a  cloth  so  that  the  north  part  only  is  exposed,  and 
the  needle  being  touched  with  this  possesses  the  virtue  of 
turning  to  the  north.1 

Whatever  interpretation  Columbus  may  have  given  to 
the  phenomenon  in  order  to  quiet  the  fears  of  his  men,  or 
whatever  his  own  ideas  may  have  been  as  to  the  cause  of 
it,  there  is  certainly  no  disputing  the  fact  that  he  did  then 
fully  observe  and  recognize  the  variation  of  the  compass. 
Moreover,  he  saw  the  needle  vary  at  other  times  on  other 
voyages,  and  the  net  result  of  his  observation  is  given  in 
his  letter  to  the  King  and  Queen  on  his  third  voyage,  in 
his  own  words,  as  follows: 

"When  I  sailed  from  Spain  to  the  West  Indies  I  found 
that  as  soon  as  I  had  passed  100  leagues  west  of  the 
Azores,  there  was  a  very  great  change  in  the  sky  and  the 
stars,  in  the  temperature  of  the  air  and  in  the  water  of  the 
sea:  and  I  remarked  that  from  North  to  South  in  travers- 
ing these  hundred  leagues  from  the  said  islands,  the  needle 
of  the  compass,  which  hitherto  had  turned  toward  the 
northeast,  tivrned  a  full  quarter  of  the  wind  to  the  north- 
west, and  this  took  place  from  the  time  when  we  reached 
that  line."2 

He  even  drew  a  deduction  from  his  observations  which 
is  curious,  and  characteristic  of  both  the  man  and  the 
time  : 

UI  have  come,"  he  says,  uto  the  conclusion  that  the 
earth  is  not  round,  but  of  the  form  of  a  pear,  or  of  a  ball 
with  a  protrusion  —  being  highest  and  nearest  the  sky 
situated  under  the  equinoctial  line.  ...  In  confirmation 


del  Almirante,  C.  66.     Munoz.:  Hist.  N.  Mundo,  lib.,  vi.,  g  32. 
Also  authorities  before  cited. 


Major:  Select  Letters,  cit.  sup. 


200         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  my  opinion,  I  revert  to  the  arguments  which  I  have  de- 
tailed respecting  the  line  which  passes  from  north  to  south 
one  hundred  leagues  west  of  the  Azores;  for,  in  sailing 
thence,  westward,  the  ships  went  on  rising  smoothly 
towards  the  sky,  and  then  the  weather  was  felt  to  be 
milder,  on  account  of  which  mildness  the  needle  shifted 
one  point  of  the  compass  ;  the  further  we  went  the  more 
the  needle  moved  to  the  northwest,  this  elevation  produc- 
ing the  variation  of  the  circle  which  the  North  star  de- 
scribed with  its  satellites." 

The  denial  of  credit  to  Columbus  for  the  actual  discov- 
ery of  variation  depends  chiefly  upon  the  supposed  indica- 
tions of  the  1436  chart  of  Andrea  Blanco  or  Bianco  (see 
note,  page  197)  and  in  a  general  way  upon  inferences  that 
earlier  navigators  may  have  observed  the  same  behavior 
of  the  needle. 

Humboldt1  states  that  three  places  in  the  Atlantic  line 
of  no  variation  for  September  I3th,  1492,  May  21,  1496, 
and  August  i6th,  1498,  can  be  certainly  determined,  and 
that  the  line  at  that  time  ran  from  northeast  to  southwest, 
touching  the  South  American  coast  a  little  east  of  Cape 
Cordova.  That  distinguished  scientist,  however,  summed 
up  the  achievement  of  Columbus  in  the  words  :  uThe  re- 
discoverer  of  the  New  World  found  a  line  of  no  variation 
3°  west  of  the  meridian  of  the  Island  of  Flores,  one  of  the 
Azores,"2  and  elsewhere  explicitly  says  that  he  has  no 
right  to  the  title  of  discoverer  of  the  variation  itself.  But 
then,  Humboldt,  who  as  the  foregoing  quotation  shows, 
was  equally  averse  to  according  to  Columbus  the  greater 
honors  which  the  world's  opinion  now  freely  bestows  upon 
him,  appears  to  have  based  his  conclusion  upon  the  show- 


.  Critique  de  1'Hist.  de  la  Ge"og.,  vol.  iii.,  p  44-48.     Cosmos, 
i.,  169-197;  v.,  49-60. 

2  He  also  says  (Cosmos,  v.  54)  that  Columbus  "had  the  great  merit  of 
determining  astronomically  the  position  of  a  line  of  no  variation  2l/2° 
east  of  the  Island  of  Corvo  in  the  Azores  on  the  I3th  of  September, 
1492." 


COLUMBUS'  DISCOVERY  OF  VARIATION.          201 

ing  of  the  Blanco  chart,  which  modern  research  has  since 
proved  to  have  been  misinterpreted.  The  fact  that  a  sim- 
ilar dictum  to  that  of  Humboldt  is  advanced  by  Washing- 
ton Irving  in  his  fascinating  life  of  the  Admiral  has  done 
much  to  place  the  matter  apparently  beyond  dispute  ;  but 
an  impartial  study  of  the  history  of  the  rise  and  progress 
of  magnetic  knowledge  up  to  the  time  of  Columbus,  and 
of  the  condition  of  it  during  his  life,  and  a  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  much  important  data  underlying  such  history 
has  been  made  known  since  both  Humboldt  and  Irving 
wrote,  indicate  the  need  for  a  revision  of  their  verdict. 

Little  weight  can  be  given  to  the  argument  that  the  first 
freely  suspended  magnetic  needle  certainly  showed  varia- 
tion, as  did  all  later  ones  when  influenced  by  the  earth's 
field,  and  that  therefore  the  phenomenon  was  always  open 
to  observation.  Unfortunately  many  a  physical  effect  has 
thus  presented  itself  for  ages  to  the  perception  of  man- 
kind— nay,  forced  itself  under  the  very  eyes  of  the  keen- 
est investigators — without  gaining  recognition,  or  adding 
in  the  slightest  to  the  world's  stock  of  knowledge,  until 
suddenly  hailed  as  a  great  discovery.  Moreover  there 
were  cogent  reasons  why,  even  if  navigators  had  noted  an 
aberration  of  the  needle,  they  would  have  been  likely  to 
ascribe  it  to  other  causes  than  the  true  one,  and  so  have 
failed  to  recognize  the  real  variation  at  all.  . 

Thus,  in  May,  1496,  when  the  Genoese  and  the  Flem- 
ish compasses  on  the  ships  of  Columbus  were  found  to 
disagree,  one  varying  to  the  northwest  and  the  other  in- 
dicating the  star,  Columbus  himself  concludes  the  reason 
to  be  the  difference  in  the  magnets  with  which  the  needles 
were  rubbed.  In  such  rudely  constructed  instruments  as 
then  existed,  it  was  equally  possible  to  have  assigned  the 
errors  to  difference  in  shape  of  the  needles,  or  weakness 
of  magnetization,  while  it  is  not  at  all  unlikely  that  both 
their  form  and  treatment  resulted  in  the  production  of  con- 
sequent poles,  which  imported  into  them  still  further  error. 
There  was  much  better  reason,  therefore,  for  the  European 


202         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISK  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

pilots  before  Columbus  to  have  regarded  any  deviation  of 
the  needle  as  due  to  faulty  construction  or  faulty  magneti- 
zation, than  to  have  assumed  that  it  varied  because  of  some 
external  influence. 

Because  Columbus  laid  most  stress  upon  his  observation 
of  the  variation  of  the  variation  and  of  a  line  of  no  varia- 
tion, is  no  more  reason  for  disputing  his  right  to  be  known 
as  the  discoverer  of  the  variation  itself,  than  is  his  notion 
that  he  had  visited  a  part  of  India  one  for  denying  him 
his  title  as  the  discoverer  of  the  New  World.  Mankind 
has  long  since  decided  that  the  forgotten  voyages  of  the 
9th  century  Icelanders  detract  nothing  from  his  renown  : 
equally  immaterial  is  the  hidden  knowledge  of  the  Chi- 
nese. The  planets  moved  in  accordance  with  definite  law 
before  the  eyes  of  millions  before  Newton  or  Kepler  lived; 
but  the  originality  of  the  conceptions  of  these  men  is  un- 
impaired. Moving  planets  and  moving  compass  needles 
merely  produced  images  on  retinas  :  it  was  inconsequent 
whether  of  men  or  of  sea-gulls.  But  to  discover  meant  the 
establishment  of  connection  between  retina  and  a  think- 
ing, intelligent  brain,  and  the  application  of  the  result  of 
thought  to  the  world's  benefit.  That  is  what  Newton  and 
Kepler  did — and  Columbus  did  likewise.  He  was  the  first 
discoverer  of  the  New  World  who  made  his  discovery 
known  to  the  Old  World.  He  was  the  first  discoverer  of 
the  variation  of  the  compass  needle  who  made  that  fact 
known  to  the  rest  of  mankind.  And  the  true  discoverer 
is  not  only  he  who  has  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear,  but 
he  who  has  a  tongue  and  uses  it  to  tell  to  others  what  his 
keener  senses  have  told  to  him. 


The  variation  of  the  compass  needle  having  been  dis- 
covered, the  importance  of  it  was  soon  perceived  by  the 
sailors,  for  such  a  vagary  of  the  needle  would  lead  ships 
far  astray  if  not  known  and  allowed  for  in  laying  the 
course.  But  the  philosophers,  who  cared  little  about  nau- 


THE   MAGNETIC   ROCKS.  203 

tical  matters,  and  knew  less,  were  more  interested  in 
speculating  upon  it  and  evolving  new  causes.  Despite  the 
light  shed  upon  the  problems  of  navigation  by  Prince 
Henry  and  his  wise  men,  the  myth  of  the  magnetic  rocks 
still  survived  among  sailors  the  world  over.  With  the 
discovery  of  variation,  this  assumed  new  vigor.  Here  was 
an  explanation  of  the  aberration  of  the  needle  ready  at 
hand,  and  it  was  promptly  and  universally  adopted.  When 
the  chart  of  the  New  Continent  was  added  to  the  Edition 
of  1508  of  Ptolemy's  geography,  the  magnetic  rocks,  hav- 
ing traversed  the  Indian  Ocean  and  the  Mediterranean,  at 
last  came  to  final  anchorage  north  of  Greenland,  which 
was  depicted  as  the  eastern  part  of  Asia,  and  the  earth 
was  given  a  magnetic  pole  in  the  shape  of  an  insular 
mountain.1 

The  idea  of  a  magnetic  pole  of  the  earth  governing  the 
compass,  to  which  Peregrinus  alludes  but  dismisses  be- 
cause of  the  wide  distribution  of  mines  of  magnetic  ore, 
had  never  been  forgotten.  Cecco  d'Ascoli,  satirist  and 
astrologer,  fifty  years  later  expressly  affirmed  in  his  bitter 
poem,  1'Acerba2 — a  most  heterogeneous  gathering  of  learn- 
ing of  all  sorts,  and  hence  appropriately  termed  "the 
Heap" — that  both  poles  of  the  earth  were  magnetic  and 
exercised  attraction,  and  perhaps  he  would  have  gone 
further  and  found  out  the  magnetic  character  of  our  globe, 
and  made  who  knows  what  other  discoveries,  if  he  had 
not  fallen  foul  of  the  Inquisition,  which  burned  both  him 
and  his  books.3  Between  1324  and  1508,  however,  great 
intellectual  changes  had  taken  place.  Where  people 
before  assigned  physical  phenomena  to  causes  entirely 
evolved  from  their  inner  consciousness,  and  hence  with- 
out any  foundation  at  all,  they  now  explained  them  by 
physical  facts  wrongly  selected;  which,  on  the  whole,  was 
in  the  direction  of  progress. 

1  Humholdt:  Cosmos.     Lond.    1872,  vol.  v.,  56. 

2Poeti  del  Primo  Secolo  della  lingua  Ital.     Florence,  1816. 

8 Lea:  Hist,  of  Inquisition,  vol.  iii.,  444. 


204         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Ill  1546,  Jerome  Fracastorio1  questioned  the  existence 
of  the  polar  mountains,  and  says  that  Bishop  Oviedo,  hav- 
ing made  diligent  inquiry  "about  that  part  of  Sannatia 
now  called  Moscovia,"  could  find  no  such  elevations. 
Olaus  Magnus, 2  who  lived  in  the  North,  however,  not 
only  affirms  the  existence  of  the  mountains,  but  directly 
avers  that  the  "compass  follows  them  in  direction."  He 
also  finds  an  island  near  the  Arctic  circle  where  the 
needle  becomes  demagnetized. 

If  the  magnetic  mountains  of  the  North  governed  the 
needle,  the  variation  was  still  to  be  accounted  for.  That, 
however,  presented  little  difficulty.  The  mountains,  it 
was  explained,  were  not  at  the  north  pole,  but  at  a  dis- 
tance from  it.  "The  needle  does  not  point  to  the  true 
North,"  remarks  Francesco  Maurolycus3  in  1567,  "but  by 
nature  to  a  certain  island  which  Olaus  Magnus  calls  the 
magnetic  island."  Martin  CortezMiad  evolved  this  and 
more  twenty  years  before,  for  he  had  not  only  to  account 
for  variation,  but  for  secular  variation — the  needle,  in  his 
time,  not  pointing  to  the  rocks,  as  located  in  the  1508 
edition  of  Ptolemy.  But  mountains  which  had  already 
traveled  from  Cochin  China  were  abundantly  movable,  so 
Cortez  merely  shifted  them  sufficiently  to  the  south  to 
meet  the  changed  conditions — a  course  evidently  approved 
by  Livio  Sanuto,  who  did  the  same  thing  years  afterward. 

Meanwhile  the  world  began  to  speculate  as  to  what  sort 
of  a  place  this  magnetic  pole — el  calamitico — might  be, 
and  what  would  happen  to  those  who  went  there.  Thus 
the  sailors,  urged  by  love  of  adventure  and  curiosity,  be- 
gan those  journeys  to  the  far  north  of  which  the  end  is 
not  yet,  and  thus  the  quest  of  the  north  pole  has  its  rise 
in  the  desire  to  attain  the  great  island  of  lodestone  to 

1  De  Sympathia  ;  Opera,  Venice,  1555,  103. 

2  Hist,  de  Gent.  Sept.     Rome,  1555,  lib.,  ii.,  c.  xxxvi. 

3  Op.  Mathematica.     Venice,  1575. 

4  Breve  Compendia-  de  la  Sphera:  The  Arts  of  Navigation,  trans,  by  R. 
Eden.     London,  1561. 


PORTUGUESE  VOYAGES.  205 

which,  it  was  supposed  three  hundred  years  ago,  all  the 
compass  needles  turned  themselves.1 

The  discovery  of  the  line  of  no  variation  by  Columbus 
(which  was  substantially  a  part  of  his  discovery  of  the  var- 
iation itself)  became  at  once  of  great  political  moment 
Immediately  upon  his  return  to  Spain,  in  March,  1493,  the 
King  and  Queen  despatched  an  embassy  to  Pope  Alexander 
VI.,  with  a  prayer  for  the  securing  to  them  of  their  rights  in 
the  newly-discovered  lands.  Martin  V.  had  already  given  to 
Portugal  all  the  territory  which  her  mariners  might  dis- 
cover between  Cape  Bojador  and  the  Bast  Indies.  Alex- 
ander now  made  over  to  Spain  all  lands  west  and  south  of 
a  line  drawn  from  the  Arctic  to  the  Antartic  Pole,  one 
hundred  leagues  west  of  the  Azores  ;  or  in  other  words,  all 
of  the  world  yet  to  be  discovered  was  partitioned  between 
these  two  nations  with  the  line  of  no  variation  to  separate 
their  respective  possessions. 

The  Portuguese  lost  little  time  in  cultivating  their  hem- 
isphere. The  great  dream  of  Henry  the  Navigator  re- 
mained still  unrealized,  although  the  three  years'  voyage 
of  the  sailors  of  the  Egyptian  Pharaoh,  centuries  before, 
showed  that  the  doubling  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  was 
not  impossible.  Bartholomew  Diaz  had  confirmed  this  in 
1486,  by  reaching  the  cape  with  a  couple  of  fifty-ton  pin- 
naces. The  India,  which  Columbus  had  not  found  by 
sailing  westward  might  still  be  open  to  discovery  through 
an  eastward  voyage.  The  Jewish  physicians  said  so. 
John  of  Portugal,  who  had  seen  the  prize  of  the  New 
World  slip  through  his  grasp,  burned  to  retrieve  his  error. 
Again  the  compass  led  on  a  great  adventure,  and  in  1498 
the  ships  of  Vasco  da  Gama,  having  sailed  around  the 
African  continent,  came  to  anchor  on  the  Malabar  coast. 

The  maritime  supremacy  of  the  Italians  was  now  van- 
ishing, and  the  rivalry  lay  between  the  nations  of  the 
Iberian  peninsula.  It  was  not  long  before  it  dawned  on 
them  that  the  earth,  being  globular,  an  imaginary  line  on 

1  Humboldt,  cit.  sup. 


206         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

only  one  side  of  it  would  not  divide  it  into  hemispheres, 
and  that  serious  dispute  might  easily  arise  as  to  the  owner- 
ship of  territory  at  the  antipodes,  depending  upon  whether 
ships  sailed  thereto  in  an  easterly  or  westerly  direction. 
The  Portuguese  had  found  the  Molucca  or  Spice  Islands  by 
traveling  constantly  eastward,  and  had  established  a  fine 
trade  with  them  in  cloves  and  nutmegs.  Upon  this  trade 
the  Spaniards  looked  with  longing  eyes,  so  that,  when 
Ferdinand  Magellan  suggested  that  it  might  be  entirely 
practicable  to  go  to  the  same  place  by  sailing  constantly 
westward,  his  persuasions  found  a  ready  and  favorable  re- 
ception. For,  obviously,  although  the  islands  had  been 
reached  by  traveling  constantly  to  the  eastward  of  the  line 
of  no  variation,  and  hence  claimed  by  the  Portuguese,  if 
they  could  be  attained  by  traveling  constantly  to  the  west- 
ward of  the  same  line,  the  claim  of  the  Spaniards  to  them, 
under  the  provisions  of  Pope  Alexander's  bull,  would  be 
just  as  good.  Such  was  the  inception  of  the  magnificent 
voyage  of  the  good  ship  San  Vittoria  in  1520-22,  from  the 
port  of  Seville  to  the  port  of  Seville.  Her  intrepid  com- 
mander died  before  the  task  was  completed,  but  through 
his  indomitable  perseverance  and  faith,  the  world  was  cir- 
cumnavigated. 

Thus  the  first  practical  application  of  electricity  to 
human  use  —  for  of  electricity  it  must  be  remembered 
magnetism  is  but  one  form — had  resulted  in  the  greatest 
of  human  achievements.  And  the  consequences — who 
shall  measure  even  the  most  immediate  of  them?  The 
whole  commercial  condition  of  civilization  profoundly 
changed  ;  new  political  questions  engendered,  to  precipi- 
tate new  conflicts  amid  the  clashing  interests  of  the 
nations ;  new  interminglings  of  races ;  new  issues  of  re- 
ligion in  its  relation  to  the  heathen ;  old  theological 
tenets,  so  far  as  they  depended  on  assumed  flatness  of  the 
earth,  overthrown,  and  the  Scriptural  interpretation  of 
physical  phenomena  discredited  ;  the  unsettlement  and 
moving  of  great  bodies  of  people  ;  a  new  thirst  for  ad- 


THE   MAGNETIC  FIELD  OF  FORCE.  207 

venture  and  a  new  spirit  of  enterprise  ;  new  distribution 
of  wealth;  new  thought:  in  a  word,  the  world,  which 
had  halted  for  a  dozen  centuries,  now  moved  onward,  not 
doubtingly  and  feebly  as  the  invalid  regaining  health, 
but  with  the  might  and  majesty  of  its  new  and  irresisti- 
ble energy. 

Granted  that  it  took  great  acts  to  do  this,  and  that 
nothing  less  than  the  discovery  of  the  new  continent, 
the  opening  of  the  water-way  to  India  and  the  circum- 
navigation of  the  globe  would  have  sufficed  ;  beyond  them 
all,  making  them  all  possible,  lay  the  slender  bit  of  mag- 
netized iron,  quivering  on  its  pivot  yet  always  looking  to 
the  far  north. 


Of  the  three  methods  of  finding  the  magnetic  poles  which 
Peregrinus  describes,  two,  it  will  be  remembered,  are  based 
upon  the  position  assumed  by  the  needle  or  short  bit  of  iron 
when  placed  upon  the  surface  of  the  spherical  magnet.  In 
one  instance,  we  are  told  to  draw  several  lines  upon  the 
globe  corresponding  in  longitudinal  direction  to  the  needle, 
the  latter  being  placed  at  different  points  and  permitted 
freely  to  direct  itself.  These  lines  are  found  to  be  merid- 
ians, and  the  poles  of  the  stone  are  at  their  intersection. 
In  another*  method,  the  needle  is  moved  about  on  the 
sphere,  until  a  point  is  observed  where  it  becomes  in- 
clined and  stands  perpendicular. 

Plainly,  both  of  these  methods  reveal,  as  I  have  already 
suggested,  not  a  force  drawing  the  iron  to  the  stone,  nor 
yet  anything  happening  in  either  stone  or  iron,  but  a  pe- 
culiar condition  in  the  space  immediately  around  the  stone, 
by  reason  of  which  the  needle  is  moved  both  in  a  hori- 
zontal and  in  a  vertical  plane,  into  a  determinate  position. 

The  circumstances  here  are  in  all  respects  remarkable. 
The  compass  needle  was  then  supposed  to  point  to  the 
Pole  star  under  the  influence  of  virtue  from  that  star ;  or, 
as  Peregrinus  believed,  under  the  effect  of  virtue  from  all 


208         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

parts  of  the  heavens.  But  the  bit  of  iron  which  Pere- 
grinus  placed  on  his  globe  was  not  a  compass  needle,  nor 
did  it  point  to  the  Pole  star ;  nor  does  he  attach  to  it  any 
theory  of  control  by  anything  celestial  or  terrestrial,  other 
than  the  lodestone  itself.  It  turned  to  the  pole  of  the 
round  stone,  and  not  only  did  that,  but  adjusted  itself 
with  such  accuracy  that  its  very  action  was  the  best  means 
of  rinding  the  pole. 

How  the  discoverer  reasoned  over  this,  we  can  only 
conjecture.  The  bit  of  iron  being  already  in  contact 
with  the  stone,  he  must  certainly  have  remarked  that 
here  was  a  force  which  did  not  act  to  draw  the  metal  to 
the  magnet,  but  simply  to  turn  it  into  a  new  position  in  a 
horizontal  plane,  and  that,  one  always  pointing  to  the 
pole. 

This,  however,  was  not  all.  In  Peregnnus'  third 
method  the  needle  is  turned,  tilted,  in  a  vertical  plane. 
If  nothing  but  attraction  were  involved,  it  ought  simply 
to  be  drawn  to  the  stone  in  any  position,  sidewise  or  end- 
wise. But  here  it  is  turned  endwise  and  then  inclined 
until  perpendicular.  Here  then  was  another  force  acting 
to  make  one  end  of  the  needle  move  downward  and  so  to 
point  to  the  pole  beneath. 

Of  course  the  needle  or  bit  of  iron  which  Peregrinus 
used  was  itself  a  magnet ;  or  became  one  immediately  by 
induction  from  the  lodestone  globe. 

Now  what  had  he  shown?  First,  the  existence  of  the 
field  of  force  around  the  stone,  in  which  he  had  seen  the 
needle  deflect  both  laterally  and  vertically  in  order  to  point 
directly  at  the  pole — second,  he  had  marked  out  lines  of 
force  and  determined  their  direction  and  that  they  ended 
in  the  poles — for  these  were  the  meridians  which  he  traced 
on  his  globe  :  and  he  had  also  seen  that  they  existed  at 
considerable  distances  from  the  pole — for,  in  order  to  dis- 
cover the  place  where  his  needle  would  stand  perpendicu- 
lar he  must  have  moved  it  to  other  places  where  it  was 
simply  more  or  less  inclined. 


THE  DIP  OF  THE  COMPASS  NEEDLE.  2OQ 

Thus  Peregrinus  revealed  the  presence  of  the  magnetic 
field — a  discovery  which  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  all 
electrical  development.  We  may  look  upon  him  as  be- 
ginning a  cycle  which  ended  five  hundred  and  fifty  years 
later,  when  Oersted  saw  his  needle  turn  and  place  itself 
anew  in  the  field  of  force  surrounding,  not  a  lodestone, 
but  a  wire  through  which  an  electrical  current  was  passing. 

In  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century  this  seed  which 
Peregrinus  planted  reached  the  end  of  its  long  period  of 
germination.  Or,  perhaps,  there  had  come  into  the  world 
people  capable  of  reading  more  from  the  pages  of  his  man- 
uscript, than  was  there  in  words.  At  all  events,  by  direct 
inspiration  from  his  writing  came  the  discovery  of  the  dip 
or  inclination  of  the  compass  needle,  and  the  still  more 
definite  recognition  of  a  magnetic  field  of  force.  How  this 
happened  I  have  now  to  tell. 


In  March,  1544,  Dr.  George  Hartmann,  a  native  of  Eck- 
holtsheim,  and  a  mathematician  and  astromoner  of  emi- 
nence, wrote  to  Duke  Albert  of  Prussia  an  account  of 
magnetic  discoveries  made  during  the  preceding  year, 
which  he  had  already  explained  to  King  Ferdinand  of 
Bohemia.  He  says : 

"In  the  second  place  I  find  also  this  in  the  magnet: 
that  not  only  does  it  decline  from  the  north,  and  turn  to 
the  east  for  nine  degrees  more  or  less  as  I  have  said,  but  it 
also  shows  a  downward  inclination  which  may  be  demon- 
strated as  follows:  Take  a  compass  needle  about  the  length 
of  a  finger  and  place  it  on  a  point  in  a  position  exactly 
horizontal  (or  on  the  water-level)  so  that  neither  end  in- 
clines to  the  earth  and  both  sides  are  in  exact  equilibrium. 
Now,  if  I  rub  either  end  of  the  needle  once  with  a  magnet, 
the  needle  does  not  stand  any  longer  balanced,  but  inclines 
downwardly  about  nine  degrees  more  or  less.  I  have  not 
been  able  to  demonstrate  to  his  Majesty  the  cause  of  this 
phenomenon."  This  was  the  first  announcement,  after 
'4 


2IO         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Peregrinus,  of  the  dip  or  inclination1  of  the  magnetic 
needle. 

In  that  same  letter,  Hartmann  describes  the  precise 
mode  of  identifying  the  north  and  south  poles  of  a  mag- 
net, by  placing  it  in  a  wooden  bowl,  floating  on  water, 
which  Peregrinus  gives;  and  revealing  the  source  of  his 
information  beyond  peradventure,  he  says — 

"I  have  received  an  old  parchment  book  of  the  time  of 
the  wars  of  the  Contadini,  in  which  I  have  found  men- 
tioned the  force  of  a  magnet,  and  the  mode  of  constructing 
by  means  of  a  magnet,  an  instrument  which  moves  auto- 
matically in  equal  form,  time  and  manner  as  does  the 
heavens  :  so  that,  as  the  sky,  every  24  hours,  makes  its 
revolution  around  the  terrestrial  circle,  so  also  this  instru- 
ment in  the  same  period  completes  its  revolution.  I  have 
not  been  able  to  believe  it." 

It  is  easy  to  identify,  from  the  foregoing,  the  first  of 
Peregrinus*  perpetual  motions,  and  to  recognize  in  the 
" parchment  book"  a  manuscript  of  Peregrinus'  letter; 
for  no  printed  edition  of  it  had  at  that  time  appeared. 
The  error  which  Hartmann  makes  as  to  the  extent  of  the 
dip,  is  easily  accounted  for  by  the  fact  that  his  needle  was 
arranged  on  a  vertical,  instead  of  a  horizontal  pivot ;  and 
hence  was  impeded  in  inclining.2 

'The  term  "Variation"  expresses  the  action  of  the  earth's  magnetic 
force  in  a  horizontal  plane,  but  that  force  has  another  action  upon  a 
freely  suspended  needle.  Only  along  the  line  of  the  magnetic  equator 
(which  varies  but  little  from  the  earth's  true  equator),  does  the  needle  lie 
in  a  horizontal  plane;  proceeding  northward,  the  north  pole  of  the  needle 
is  drawn  downward  at  an  increasing  angle  called  the  "dip"  or  "inclina- 
tion," until  it  reaches  a  value  of  90°  at  the  magnetic  pole;  but  proceeding 
southward  the  north  end  of  the  needle  is  tilted  upward.  In  some  modern 
compasses  sliding  weights  on  the  frame  which  carries  the  needle  are  used 
to  counteract  this  inclining  tendency. 

'See  Bertelli  :  Memoria  Sopra  P.  Peregrinus,  p.  in,  quoting  from 
Hartmann's  letter.  Dove  :  Repertorium  der  Physik,  Berlin,  1838,  Band 
ii.  Also,  Volpicelli :  Intorno  alle  prime  scoperte  della  propriety  che 
appartengono  al  magnete,  Atti  dell.  Accad.  Pontif.  de'  Nuovi  Lincei, 
Vol.  XXX.,  8  March,  1866. 


ROBERT   NORMAN.  211 

Four  years  after  Hartmann's  letter  was  written,  one 
Fortunius  Affaitatus,  a  native  of  Cremona,  addressed  a 
treatise  to  Pope  Paul  III  in  which  it  has  been  supposed 
there  is  some  allusion  to  the  dip.  The  theory  of  Affaitatus 
is  interesting  in  that  it  opposes  the  older  notion  of  sym- 
pathy between  pole  and  needle,  and  substitutes  a  sort  of 
inertia  inherent  to  matter  and  to  the  magnet  in  particular, 
whereby  it  follows  the  movement  wherever  possible  of  the 
heavenly  sphere.  And,  as  this  has  the  greatest  velocity 
at  the  equator,  and  the  least  at  the  poles,  so  the  magnet, 
not  being  able  to  find  any  point  of  rest,  lowers  itself  at  the 
equator  toward  the  pole;  a  merely  fanciful  speculation 
which  obviously  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  inclination  of 
the  needle,  which  is  under  consideration.1 

The  man  who  gave  to  the  world  the  first  correct  knowl- 
edge and  who  is  most  commonly  credited  with  the  dis- 
covery of  the  dip  is  Robert  Norman,  an  instrument  maker 
of  Bristol,  England,  who,  in  1576,  announced  his  achieve- 
ment in  a  little  treatise  called  the  "Newe  Attractive."2 
The  conditions  are  those  which  we  shall  find  repeated 
many  times  in  this  history — a  possibly  independent  in- 
ventor, realizing  the  full  importance  of  his  accomplish- 
ment, anticipated,  in  point  of  time,  by  others  who,  if  they 
perceived  the  extent  of  their  discovery,  left  no  record  to 
that  effect.  Peregrinus  undoubtedly  discovered  the  incli- 
nation of  the  needle  to  a  globular  magnet,  but  not  to  the 
earth.  Hartmann  discovered  the  inclination  of  the  needle 
to  the  earth,  but  says  himself  that  he  cannot  understand 
it,  and  besides  never  sees  the  full  extent  of  the  angle  of 
dip.  It  is  not  unreasonable  to  believe  that  Norman  got 
nothing  from  Hartmann,  for  a  private  letter  to  a  Prussian 
Duke  was  not  at  all  likely  to  come  under  his  notice.  But 
whether,  with  Hartmann,  he  drank  from  the  same  spring 

1  Affaitatus:  Theolog.  Phys.  et  Astron.  Considerationes,  Venice,  1659. 
See,  also,  D'Avezac  :  Apercus  Hist  Sur  la  Boussole.     Bull,  de  la  Soc. 
Ge"og.,  1860.     Bertelli:  Memoria  sopra  Peregrine,  115. 

2  London,  1581.     Reprinted,  1720. 


212         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

is  open  to  question.  Both  the  printed  edition  of  Pere- 
grinus'  letter,  and  Taisnier's  pirated  copy  thereof,  were 
extant  and  available  to  him;  and  in  both  are  pictures, 
which  the  earlier  manuscripts  of  the  Letter  did  not  have. 

Norman's  little  pamphlet  is  of  especial  interest  in  that 
it  is  one  of  the  earliest  English  books  on  the  magnet,  and 
contains  the  first  poem  in  the  language  on  the  same  sub- 
ject. If  Norman  was  simply  an  artificer,  his  skill  as  a 
writer  is  noteworthy;  for  his  preface  is  a  model  of  style, 
couched  in  the  quaint  rhetoric  of  his  time.  Moreover,  it 
is  remarkable  as  showing  the  bond  which  still  existed  be- 
tween the  purely  speculative  philosophy  and  experimental 
science,  and  the  efforts  of  the  latter  to  free  itself  there- 
from. 

UI  meane  not  to  use  barely  tedious  Conjectures  or  im- 
aginations: but,  briefly  as  I  may,  to  passe  it  over,  ground- 
ing my  Arguments  onely  uppon  experience,  reason  and 
demonstration  which  are  the  grounds  of  Artes,"  is  the 
author's  declaration  of  independence;  "albeit,  it  may  be 
said,"  he  continues,  "by  the  learned  in  the  Mathemat- 
icalles,  as  hath  beene  already  written  by  some,  that  this  is 
no  question  or  matter  for  a  Mechanician  or  Mariner  to 
meddle  with,  no  more  than  is  the  finding  of  the  Longitude, 
for  that  it  must  bee  handled  exquisitely  by  Geometricall 
demonstration  and  Arithmeticall  Calculation;  in  which 
Artes,  they  would  have  all  Mechanitians  and  Sea-men  to 
be  ignorant,  or  at  least  insufficientlie  furnished  to  performe 
such  a  matter,  alledging  against  them  the  latin  Proverb 
of  Apelles,  ^Ne  sutor  ultra  crepidamS  But,"  he  con- 
cludes, taking  heart  of  grace,  "there  are,  in  this  land, 
divers  Mechanicians,  that  in  their  severall  faculties  and 
professions  have  the  use  of  those  Artes  at  their  fingers 
ends,  and  can  apply  them  to  their  severall  purposes  as 
effectually  and  more  readily,  than  those  who  would  most 
condemne  them;"  and  hence  he  "  woulde  with  the  learned 
to  use  modesty  in  publishing  their  conceits  and  not  dis- 
dainfully to  condemne  men  that  will  search  out  the 


NORMAN'S  POEM.  213 

secrets  of  their  Artes  and  professions,  and  publish  the  same 
to  the  behoofe  and  use  of  others;  no  more  than  they  woulde 
that  others  should  judge  of  them  for  promising  much  and 
performing  little  or  nothing  at  all." 

Following  his  preface,  Norman  gives  the  following  lyric 
on  the  magnet,  which  is  evidently  of  his  own  composition: 

THE 
MAGNES   OR  I.OADSTONE'8   CHALLENGE. 

Give  place  ye  glittering  sparks, 

ye  glimmering  Diamonds  bright, 
Ye  Rubies  red,  ye  Saphires  brave, 

wherein  ye  most  delight. 
In  breefe  yee  stones  euricht, 

and  burnisht  all  with  gold, 
Set  forth  in  Lapidaries  shops, 

for  Jewels  to  be  sold. 
Give  place,  give  place  I  say, 

your  beautie,  gleame,  and  glee, 
Is  all  the  vertue  for  the  which 

accepted  so  you  bee. 
Magnes,  the  Loadstone  I, 

your  painted  sheaths  defie, 
Without  my  helpe,  in  Indian  Seas 

the  best  of  you  might  lye. 
I  guide  the  Pilot's  course, 

his  helping  hand  I  am, 
The  Mariner  delights  in  me, 
•  *••        so  doth  the  Marchant  man. 
My  vertue  lies  unknowne, 

my  secrets  hidden  are, 
By  me,  the  Court  and  Common-weale, 

are  pleasured  very  farre. 
No  ship  could  sayle  on  seas, 

her  course  to  runne  aright, 
Nor  compasse  shew  the  ready  way, 

were  Magnes  not  of  might. 
Blush  then,  and  blemish  all, 

bequeath  to  mee  thats  due, 
Your  seates  in  golde,  your  price  in  plate, 

which  Jewellers  doo  renue. 
Its  I,  its  I  alone, 

whom  you  usurpe  upon, 
Magnes  my  name,  the  Loadstone  cal'd, 

The  prince  of  stones  alone. 


214         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

If  this  you  can  denie, 

then  seeme  to  make  reply, 
And  let  the  painefull  sea-man  judge, 

the  which  of  us  doth  lye. 

THE  MARINER'S  JUDGMENT. 
The  Loadstone  is  the  stone, 

the  oiiely  stone  alone, 
Deserving  praise  above  the  rest, 

whose  vertues  are  unknowne. 

THE  MARCHANT'S  VERDICT. 

The  Diamonds  bright,  the  Saphires  brave, 

are  stones  that  beare  the  name, 
But  flatter  not,  and  tell  the  troath, 

Magnes  deserves  the  same. 

Then  he  reviews,  briefly,  the  existing  knowledge  of  what 
he  calls  the  "attractive  point,"  or  the  point  to  which  the 
compass  needle  is  directed.  This  point,  he  says,  attracts 
the  compass,  while  the  compass  in  turn  respects  that 
point.  He  refutes  the  doctrine  of  the  magnetic  rocks  at 
the  North  Pole;  "for,"  he  says,  "if  the  compasse  or 
needle  were  drawn  towards  the  North  part  by  any  Attrac- 
tion of  the  Magnes  stones  in  those  parts  imagined,  why 
then  should  not  the  Compasse  or  Needle  shew  the  same 
effect  in  mooving  towards  the  Hand  of  Elba,  in  the  Levant 
seas,  where  are  great  quan title  of  these  Stones?  and  yet 
Shippes  sayling  within  a  myle  of  this  Hand,  yea,  and  into 
Porto  Feraro,  a  Towne  of  the  same  He,  within  a  quarter 
of  a  myle  of  a  huge  Rocke  of  these  stones,  the  Compasse 
or  needle  is  not  found  any  thing  to  be  drawne  or  changed, 
nor  the  Attraction  of  this  huge  rocke  to  extend  so  farre  as 
one  quarter  of  a  myle." 

He  disputes  the  opinions  of  Pedro  de  Media  and  of  Mar- 
tin Cortes,  who  denied  the  existence  of  any  variation  of  the 
compass  at  all,  and  adhered  to  the  old  notion,  which,  as  I 
have  already  pointed  out,  was  that  generally  accepted  prior 
to  the  time  of  Columbus,  namely,  that  aberration  of  the 
needle  was  due  to  errors  in  the  instrument ;  or,  as  Nor- 


THE  FIRST  MEASUREMENT  OF  DIP.  215 

man  puts  it,  "that  if  the  compasse  or  needle  shew  not  the 
pole,  the  fault  is  in  placing  the  wiers  on  the  flie,  and  not 
in  any  propertie  it  hath  to  vary." 

All  of  these  earlier  theorists  he  thinks  went  "farre  wide 
from  the  Attractive  point,"  and  the  reason  they  did  so  is 
their  ignorance  of  a  "certaine  Declining  propertie  under 
the  Horizon,  lately  found  in  the  needle."  This  is  his  dis- 
covery, which  he  describes  in  the  following  terms  :  "Hav- 
ing made  many  and  divers  compasses,  and  using  alwaies 
to  finish  and  end  them  before  I  touched  the  needle,  I  found 
continually  that  after  I  had  touched  the  yrons  with  the 
Stone,  that  presently  the  north  point  thereof  would  bend 
or  Decline  downwards  under  the  Horizon  in  some  quan- 
titie  ;  insomuch  that  to  the  Flie  of  the  Compasse  which 
before  was  made  equall,  I  was  still  constrained  to  put  some 
small  peece  of  waxe  in  the  South  part  thereof,  to  counter- 
poise this  declining,  and  to  make  it  equall  againe."  He 
noticed  this  repeatedly  without  deeming  the  occurrence 
of  any  moment,  until  some  one  employed  him  to  make  an 
instrument  in  which  the  needle  was  to  be  five  inches  long. 
He  constructed  the  apparatus  with  his  usual  care,  balanced 
the  needle  with  the  utmost  nicety,  and  then  magnetized 
it  ;  whereupon  the  north  end  dipped.  Not  wishing  to  add 
wax,  he  sought  to  restore  the  balance  by  cutting  off  some 
of  the  inclining  end  ;  but  he  removed  too  much,  and 
spoiled  his  work.  Although,  as  he  says,  "thereby  beeing 
stroken  in  some  choller,"  he  at  once  determined  to  find 
out  the  cause  of  this  inclining,  and  thereupon  he  sup- 
ported a  needle  on  a  horizontal  pivot,  so  that  it  could 
move  freely  around  a  vertical  circle,  which  he  graduated 
in  quadrants  after  the  fashion  of  the  Astrolabe.  Then,  for 
the  first  time,  it  became  possible  to  measure  the  whole 
angle  of  inclination  or  dip  of  the  needle  below  the  horizon, 
and  Norman  records  it  as  about  71°  50'.  l 

How  was  this  to  be  accounted  for?     Not  by  any  acces- 


was  in  1576.     The  angle  afterwards  increased  to  74°  42'  in  1720, 
since  which  time  it  has  been  decreasing. 


2l6         THE  INTELIvECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

sion  of  weight  at  one  end,  says  Norman,  because,  if  the 
needle  be  placed  in  a  balance,  it  will  be  found  to  be  no 
heavier  after  being  touched  by  the  lodestone  than  it  was 
before;  and  besides,  if  the  needle  did  receive  "pondrous 
or  weighty  matter  from  the  magnet,"  why,  he  asks, 
should  not  the  south  end,  as  well  as  the  north  end,  dip 
when  rubbed? — which  it  certainly  does  not.  But  there 
are  more  deeply-rooted  hypotheses  than  these  to  be  en- 
countered. Hitherto  we  have  regularly  met  the  supposition 
of  an  attractive  force  exerted  on  the  needle,  most  com- 
monly on  the  north-seeking  end  of  it,  by  the  Pole  star. 

Even  when  the  influence  of  all  parts  of  the  heavens  is 
maintained,  there  is  invariably  a  conjecture  that  the 
needle  is  drawn  to  something,  and  so  brought  into  posi- 
tion. Obviously,  however,  the  discovery  of  the  inclination 
placed  these  theories  at  once  in  question.  For  what 
pulled  the  North  point  downward,  or  lifted  the  South  end 
upward? 

Norman  at  once  takes  the  ground  that  there  are  no  at- 
tractive points,  but  simply  a  u  certayne  point  that  the 
Needle  always  respecteth  or  sheweth,  being  voide  and  with- 
out any  Attractive  propertie,"  and  this  he  calls  the  "Re- 
spective point."  To  prove  this,  he  runs  a  needle  through  a 
cork,  and  cuts  the  latter  gradually  smaller,  until  it  will 
just  support  the  needle  level  upon  the  surface  of  the  water. 
Then  he  magnetizes  the  needle,  and  notes  that  its  north 
end  inclines  downwardly,  as  before;  the  needle  not  u  de- 
scending to  the  bottome,  as  by  reason  it  should,  if  there 
were  any  Attraction  downewards,  the  lower  part  of  the 
water  being  neerer  that  point  then  the  superficies  thereof." 
Similiarly,  he  says,  if  the  needle  were  arranged  so  as  to 
sink  very  slowly  to  the  bottom  of  the  vessel,  it  would  be 
lifted  bodily  if  there  were  any  attractive  point  in  the 
heavens. 

Of  course,  when  the  needle  is  tilted,  a  line,  in  prolonga- 
tion of  its  axis,  enters  the  earth,  and  on  this  line  some- 
where, Norman  insists,  his  imaginary  Respective  point 


THE   RESPECTIVE  POINT. 


217 


exists.  He  cannot,  however,  fix  its  position  until  "the 
expert  travailer  have  made  certaine  observation  of  the 
Declyning  of  the  Needle  in  other  places, "  but  considers 
that  it  will  "  be  great  or  little,  according  as  the  distance 
of  the  point  Respective  is  from  the  place  where  the  triall 
is  made."  Of  one  thing,  however,  he  is  sure,  and  that  is 
that  "this  stone  hath  wholy  and  fully  in  himselfe  Power, 
Action,  Propertie  and  Vertue  of  his  own  Appetite  to  shewe 


NORMAN'S  DIPPING  NEEDLE.1 

and  to  cause  the  Needle  to  shewe  the  point  Respective, 
without  any  Attractive  qualitie  or  external  cause  of  Rockes 
of  the  Magnes  stone,  or  by  Attraction  in  the  Heavens  or 
elsewhere  whatsoever."  If  one  presses  him  further,  how- 
ever, he  announces  that  the  end  of  his  explanations  is 
reached.  "I  am  no  more  able,"  he  says  finally,  "to 
satisfie  you  heerein,  than  if  you  should  aske  me  howe  and 
by  what  means  the  celestiall  Spheres  are  moved." 


1  From  The  Newe  Attractive. 


2l8         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

The  times  had  greatly  changed  from  those  when  the 
first  duty  of  a  philosopher  was,  at  all  hazards,  to  evolve  a 
theory  whereto  the  facts  might  fit  themselves  as  best  they 
could.  Norman's  Respective  point  is  not  theoretical.  It 
has  a  physical  location  along  a  certain  line.  The  needle 
plainly  points  to  it,  but  does  not  move  to  it  bodily.  Ergo, 
the  virtue  is  in  the  needle — not  in  the  point — and  has  been 
derived  from  the  stone  where  uGod  in  his  Omnipotent 
providence  hath  appointed  it  so  to  bee." 

Yet,  even  here,  he  is  not  quite  content  with  the  finality 
of  his  conclusion.  Even  if  he  cannot  say  why  the  virtue 
is  in  the  stone,  he  can  picture  to  himself  something  of  its 
attributes — for,  if  it  u  could  by  any  means  be  made  visible 
to  the  Eye  of  man  it  would  be  found  in  a  Sphericall  form 
extendinge  round  about  the  Stone  in  great  Compasse  and 
the  dead  bodie  of  the  Stone  in  the  middle  thereof:  whose 
center  is  the  center  of  his  aforesaid  Virtue." 

Thus  the  conception  of  the  magnetic  field  of  force 
begins  to  take  shape.  Peregrinus  has  found  its  tendency 
to  turn  the  needle  in  line  with  the  poles  and  to  draw  the 
needle  point  down  ;  the  horizontal  and  vertical  com- 
ponents. Norman  finds  and  measures  the  inclination. 
The  variation  of  the  compass  is  already  known.  He  com- 
bines the  two,  "for  seeing  it  is  certain  that  though  in 
severall  Horizons  the  compasse  hath  severall  Variations  : 
yet  in  any  one  Horizon,  the  needle  Respecteth  alwayes 
one  onlie  point  without  alteration  as  by  travaile  is  truely 
prooved."  And  then  he  describes  the  virtue  which  comes 
from  the  lodestone  and  which  directs  the  needle — as  a 
"Circular  and  invisible  Vertue  piercing  all  thinges  and 
stayed  by  nothing  be  it  Wall,  Boorde,  Glasse  or  anything 
whatsoever." 

No  one  can  read  Norman's  narrative  of  his  experiments 
and  theories  without  being  impressed  with  his  frank  an- 
ticipation of  objections  to  them.  He  adheres  to  the  belief 
that  the  stone  owes  its  virtue  to  nothing  but  its  own  in- 
herent quality,  and  yet  he  is  mystified  over  the  capacity 


DELUSIONS  CONCERNING  THE   LODESTONE.          2 19 

of  the  magnet  to  induce  its  property  in  another,  and  an- 
other, and  another  iron  nail,  and  so  on  indefinitely,  until 
he  bethinks  him  of  musk,  which,  "  having  a  sweet  savour 
or  smell  itself  imparteth  the  same  to  another  thing,  as  to 
a  pair  of  Gloves  :  and  those  Gloves  give  out  savour  and 
perfume  a  whole  Chest  of  Cloaths,"  and  so  concludes  that 
' '  the  Vertue  of  the  stone  is  distributive. ' '  Note  the  physi- 
cal character  of  all  this,  when  contrasted  with  the  older 
notions  of  the  affection  of  the  magnet  and  iron,  or  the 
hunger  of  one  for  the  other,  or  the  doctrine  of  sympathy 
and  similitudes. 


It  is  necessary,  in  order  to  appreciate  how  singular  the 
position  which  Norman  assumes,  and  how  completely  he 
adopted  the  inductive  method,  to  recall  some  of  the  general 
ideas  concerning  the  magnet  which  were  then  in  vogue. 
I  mean  the  beliefs  of  the  great  mass  of  the  people — the 
conceptions  which  infiltrated  through  all  sorts  of  litera- 
ture, and  which  made  up  the  sum  total  of  the  world's 
knowledge  on  the  subject. 

There  was  not  a  single  myth  which  had  come  down  from 
antiquity  which  was  not  in  full  vigor.  That  garlic  would 
destroy  magnetism,  that  the  lodestone  had  no  attractive 
power  in  the* presence  of  the  diamond,  that  it  was  a  useful 
medicament  when  administered  internally — even  the 
ancient  superstitions  of  Samothrace — all  were  preserved 
and  implicitly  accepted.  They  had  persisted  unimpaired 
by  the  dialectics  of  the  schoolmen  or  the  physical  discover- 
ies of  the  philosophers;  and  they  had  become  folk-lore 
and  chimney-corner  gossip.  A  few  examples  will  suffice: 

A  magnet  (it  was  believed)  carried  on  the  person  will 
cure  cramp  and  gout,  draw  poison  from  wounds,  prevent 
baldness,  cure  headache,  obtund  pain  and  facilitate  parturi- 
tion. It  will  draw  gold  from  wells,  speak  when  sprinkled 
on  water  with  a  voice  like  that  of  an  infant,  and  when  mixed 
with  nettle  juice  and  serpent  fat,  make  a  man  "  mad  and 


220         THE  INTEUvECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

drive  him  from  his  kindred,  habitation  and  country.''  It  is 
both  a  test  of  connubial  fidelity  and  a  potent  means  of 
effecting  marital  reconciliations.  It  takes  away  fears  and 
jealousies  and  renders  a  person  "  gracious,  persuasive  and 
elegant  in  his  conversation."  It  is  the  especial  friend  of 
burglars;  because,  u  if  burned  in  the  corners  of  a  house,  it 
causes  the  inmates  to  believe  that  the  building  is  falling; 
and  so  terrified  are  they  with  fancies,  that  they  fly  out, 
leaving  everything  behind  them,  and,  by  this  artifice, 
thieves  seize  on  goods."  Such  were  the  typical  absurdi- 
ties which  filled  people's  minds  at  the  beginning  of  the  six- 
teenth century.  At  about  the  middle  of  the  same  period, 
they  received  a  vast  accession  of  others,  which,  if  not 
more  absurd,  were  far  more  pestilent — for  then  began  many 
of  the  delusions  and  deceptions  which  still  prevail  under 
the  generic  name  of  u  animal  magnetism." 

To  the  arch  impostor  Bombast  of  Hohenheim,  or,  as  he 
is  commonly  called,  Paracelsus,  the  conception  of  these 
last  is  chiefly  due;  and  as  we  shall  encounter  more  or  less 
of  his  influence  in  tracing  further  developments,  some  brief 
consideration  may  be  given  to  his  magnetic  theories.  He 
had  learned  the  rudiments  of  medicine  from  his  father; 
but  he  became  by  choice  a  professed  astrologer,  alchemist 
and  magician,  traveled  widely  u  to  observe  the  secrets  of 
nature  and  the  famous  mountain  of  lodestone," l  and 
eventually  imbibed,  from  the  East,  a  rude  sort  of  theoso- 
phy.  This,  mingled  with  the  mysticism  of  Europe,  pro- 
duced a  new  and  complicated  form  of  quackery  which, 
being  less  comprehensible  than  any  which  had  preceded 
it,  found  especial  favor  with  the  fanatics,  demonologists 
and  philosopher' s-stone  hunters.  Thus  encouraged,  he 
denounced  Galen,  Hippocrates  and  Averrhoes  and  all  their 
adherents  as  imbeciles,  claimed  the  discovery  of  the  elixir 
of  life,  asserted  communication  with  spirits,  and  entered 
upon  a  career  of  the  grossest  dissipation.  Finally,  he  lost 
the  support  of  the  more  intelligent  portion  of  his  followers, 

1  Biographic  Univ.,  Paris,  1822. 


PARACELSUS.  221 

and  sank  into  a  mere  strolling  charlatan,  wandering  from 
town  to  town  telling  fortunes,  casting  nativities,  selling 
alleged  receipts  for  producing  the  philosopher's  stone,  and 
preying  generally  upon  the  most  ignorant  classes.  In  1541 
he  ended  his  career  in  abject  poverty,  an  inmate  of  the 
public  hospital  at  Salzburg. 

The  modern  tendency  toward  psychical  research,  the 
ever-present  inclination  of  the  credulous  to  accept  old  de- 
lusions if  revamped  in  novel  guises,  and  probably  Mr. 
Robert  Browning's  poem1  have  given  to  Paracelsus  and 
his  cult  a  new  and  wholly  factitious  importance.  His 
absurdities  have  been  dignified  by  the  name  of  a  u phil- 
osophy," and  the  man  himself  converted  into  a  martyr. 
He  knew  human  nature,  and  played  upon  its  foibles  with 
consummate  skill.  In  that  he  proclaimed  the  doctrine  of 
free  thought  in  medicine  and  developed  the  therapeutic 
value  of  opium  and  mercury,  the  world  is  indebted  to  him. 
But,  as  a  teacher  of  physical  science,  the  best  that  can  be 
said  of  him  is  that  he  preached  reliance  upon  phenomena 
rather  than  faith,  and  practised  exactly  the  opposite. 

His  notions  concerning  the  magnet  are  of  moment,  be- 
cause of  their  retarding  effect  upon  scientific  progress. 
Yet  they  were  merely  amplifications  of  myths  as  old  as  the 
race  itself,  re-told  in  manner  suited  to  that  era,  as  they  are 
still  rehearsed  in  terms  suited  to  the  present  time.  Lies, 
in  which  the  people  wish  to  believe,  rival  the  truth  in  im- 
mortality. The  finger  rings  from  Samothrace,  the  Martial 
Amulets  of  Paracelsus,  and  the  magnetic  cure-alls  of  to- 
day are  all  accounted  for  in  the  persistence  of  human 
gullibility  and  ignorance  through  all  civilizations  and  all 
ages.  Exposures  seem  powerless  to  destroy  them.  Human 
imagination  and  chance  recoveries  afford  ample  sustenance. 

According  to  Paracelsus,  every  human  being  is  a  mag- 

1  To  this  it  is  but  fair  to  say  that  Mr.  Browning  himself  provides  an 
antidote  in  his  appended  notes.  There  is  no  one  work,  I  apprehend, 
which  shows  more  fully  the  influence  of  Paracelsus  on  the  thought  of  his 
time,  than  Burton's  Anatomy  of  Melancholy. 


222         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

net  "  possessing  a  magnetic  power  by  which  he  may 
attract  certain  effluvia  of  a  good  or  evil  quality  in  the  same 
manner  as  a  magnet  will  attract  iron."  This  is  merely  an 
attribution,  in  fact,  to  man  of  the  attractive  quality  which 
the  ancient  writers  were  so  fond  of  expressing  as  pertain- 
ing to  the  Deity,  and  as  metaphorically  illustrated  by  the 
drawing  power  of  the  magnet  or  amber.  The  old  poets 
and  philosophers  as  I  have  shown  constantly  personified 
the  magnet  and  spoke  of  its  love,  or  its  appetite,  for  the 
iron.  Paracelsus  simply  reverses  the  figure,  and,  instead  of 
attributing  to  the  magnet  the  capacities  of  the  man,  gives 
to  the  man  the  capacities  of  the  magnet.  The  metaphors 
of  the  poets  became  more  literal  after  that.  The  differ- 
ence is  apparent  between  Gautier  d'Epinois'  asseveration 
that  all  the  world  turns  to  his  lady  because  of  her  beauty, 
even  as  the  needle  to  the  lodestone,  and  the  complaint 

You  draw  me,  you  hard-hearted  adamant, 
But  yet  you  draw  not  iron,  for  my  heart 
Is  true  as  steel — 

of  Helena  following  Demetrius.  It  is  a  reflection  of  the 
Paracelsan  notion — and  not  a  gross  allusion  to  the  medi- 
aeval u flesh-magnet" — which  is  thus  found  in  the  only 
extended  reference  to  the  lodestone  which  Shakespeare 
makes. 

"A  magnet,"  continues  the  astrologer  elaborating  his 
theories,  "may  be  prepared  from  iron  that  will  attract  iron ; 
and  a  magnet  may  be  prepared  out  of  some  vital  substance 
that  will  attract  vitality."  Such  a  substance,  he  holds,  is 
one  which  has  remained  for  a  time  in  the  human  body; 
and  it  may  serve  to  allay  inflammation  because  "it  will 
attract  the  superabundance  of  magnetism  carried  to  that 
place  by  the  rush  of  the  blood."  Diseases  can  be  trans- 
planted from  the  human  frame  into  the  earth  by  similar 
means.  As  to  the  lodestone  itself,  Paracelsus  asserts  that 
it  "  attracts  all  martial  humors  that  are  in  the  human 
system;"  and  that  "martial  diseases  are  caused  by  auras 


PARACELSUS.  223 

coming  and  expanding  from  a  centre  outwards  and  at  the 
same  time  holding  on  to  their  centres.''  The  front  (north 
pole)  of  the  magnet  attracts,  and  the  back  (south  pole)  re- 
pels; and,  in  cases  of  nervous  u  epilepsy  where  there  is  a 
great  determination  of  nervous  fluid  towards  the  brain,  the 
repulsing  (negative)  pole  of  a  magnet  is  applied  to  the 
spine  and  to  the  head,  and  the  attracting  (positive)  pole  of 
other  magnets  upon  the  abdominal  region."1 

All  of  this  reads  very  like  an  extract  from  a  "paper" 
by  some  modern  "hypnotist"  or  magnetizer.  We  shall 
encounter  more  of  it  as  we  approach  the  period  of  Van 
Helmont,  and  Charleton,  and  Digby,  so  that  it  is  not 
necessary,  for  present  purposes,  to  dwell  longer  on  the  sub- 
ject. The  traces  of  Paracelsus'  fancies,  either  original  or 
revamped,  constantly  appear  in  the  scientific  works  of  the 
sixteenth,  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  like  bar- 
nacles fouling  and  delaying  the  ship.  Even  Norman 
turns  aside  to  contradict  his  statement,  that  a  magnet, 
when  umade  red-hot,  and  quenched  in  the  oil  of  Crocus 
Martis,"  will  become  so  increased  in  strength  as  to  be 
competent  to  pull  a  nail  out  of  the  wall.  uBut  I  suppose 
he  meant  not  that  the  nail  should  be  fast,"  adds  Norman 
drily,  "for  then  it  were  a  miraculous  matter;"  which  be- 
ing applied  to  a  miracle-monger  of  singular  flamboyancy, 
savors  of  the  sarcastic. 

1  The  foregoing  extracts  are  from  the  Paramirum  of  Paracelsus.     See 
his  Life  by  Mr.  Franz  Hartmann  'v  London,  1887,  pp.  138-431). 


CHAPTER  IX. 

AMONG  the  men  of  the  past,  whose  true  greatness  the 
world  is  only  now  tardily  appreciating,  stands  Pietro 
Sarpi,1  better  known  by  his  monastic  name  of  Fra  Paolo, 
for  he  was  a  friar  of  the  Servite  order.  He  was  born  in 
1552,  and  died  in  1623.  The  erection  of  his  statue — the 
highest  honor  which  the  Republic  of  Venice  could  bestow 
upon  a  citizen — was  decreed  three  weeks  after  his  death, 
and  carried  into  effect  two  hundred  and  seventy  years  later. 

It  is  not  my  province  to  recount  the  strange  history  of 
Fra  Paolo's  political  career ;  wherein,  by  sheer  force  of 
ability,  he  successfully  opposed  the  Pope  in  the  plenitude 
of  his  power,  and  became  the  chief  consulter,  guide  and 
de  facto  ruler  of  the  proudest  state  in  Europe.  The  great- 
est of  the  Venetians  was  equally,  in  his  day,  the  greatest 
of  Italian  scientists.  A  history  of  any  branch  of  physical 
science,  known  in  his  time,  must  of  necessity  deal  with 
some  part  of  his  work. 

"What  he  did,"  says  Macaulay,  "he  did  better  than 
anybody;''  and,  perhaps,  it  will  suffice  to  recall  Galileo's 
reverent  address  to  him,  as  "my  father  and  my  master," 
to  show  that  the  encomium  of  the  historian  applies  not 
alone  to  his  achievements  as  a  statesman.  His  private 
secretary  and  intimate  friend,  Fra  Fulgenzio  Micanzio, 
in  a  list  of  subjects  in  which  he  declares  Fra  Paolo 
to  have  been  profoundly  versed,  mentions,  besides  the 
Hebrew  and  Greek  languages,  and  mathematics,  "history, 
astronomy,  the  nutrition  of  life  in  animals,  geometry,  in- 
cluding conic  sections,  magnetism,  botany,  mineralogy, 

1  Robertson :  Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  London,  1894.  Griseleni :  Vita  de  F.  P. 
Sarpi,  1760.  Giovini:  Vita,  etc.,  Brussels,  1836.  Micanzio:  Vita,  etc., 
Verona,  1750.  Fabronio:  Vitae  Italorum, 'Pisa,  1798,  xvii. 

(224) 


FRA   PAOLO.  225 

hydraulics,  acoustics,  animal  statics,  atmospheric  pressure, 
the  rising  and  falling  of  objects  in  air  and  water,  the  re- 
flection of  light  from  curved  surfaces,  spheres,  mechanics, 
civil  and  military  architecture,  medicine,  herbs"  and 
"anatomy."  And,  in  almost  every  one  of  these  great 
fields,  Sarpi  made  discoveries  of  the  highest  importance. 
He  first  observed  the  dilatation  and  contraction  of  the  uvea 
of  the  eye ;  first  found  the  valves  in  the  human  veins,  and 
first  discovered  the  circulation  of  the  blood  (Harvey  ex- 
perimentally demonstrated  this  afterwards),  and  invented 
artificial  respiration.  He  made  the  first  maps  of  the  moon, 
anticipated  Kepler  in  his  observations  on  the  reflection 
of  light  from  curved  surfaces,  first  recognized  the  effects 
of  refraction,  and  declared  that  the  sun  is  fed,  and  that 
stars  are  suns.  He  announced  that  heat  is  motion,  and 
exemplified  its  generation  by  heating  iron  with  a  hammer; 
that  light  is  motion,  and  that  it  comes  to  us  in  waves  or 
pulsations  through  a  medium  less  material  than  the  atmos- 
phere ;  that  sound  is  motion,  but  not  (as  he  thought) 
motion  of  the  atmosphere,  for  it  travels  against  the  wind 
and  through  water,  moving  like  light  in  waves  or  pulsa- 
tions ;  that  color  is  caused  by  the  atmosphere  and  by  the 
reflection  of  different  rays  of  light ;  and  then  he  identifies 
sound,  color,  heat  and  light  together,  thus  correlating 
these  physical^phenomena.  The  desire  is  strong  to  dwell 
upon  Sarpi' s  researches  in  these  fields,  but  it  must  be 
foregone  to  turn  to  his  discoveries  in  magnetism.  Un- 
fortunately, here  the  actual  records  are  meagre.  He 
wrote  a  treatise  on  the  magnet,  which,  after  his  death, 
remained,  with  his  other  manuscripts,  in  the  Servite  Mon- 
astery, where  he  spent  his  life.  As  late  as  1740  his 
literary  remains  were  minutely  examined  and  arranged  in 
order  by  the  learned  Fra  Giuseppe  Bergantini.  Twenty- 
six  years  afterwards  they,  with  the  buildings  in  which 
they  were  stored,  were  completely  destroyed  by  fire. 

While  Sarpi's  original  treatise  on  the  magnet  was  thus 
lost,  a  brief  record  of  its  contents  is  contained  in  his  biog- 
15 


226         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

raphy,  written  by  Griselini,  and  published  about  1760.  It 
appears  to  have  contained,  first,  a  mass  of  scattered  data 
(probably  lecture  notes),  followed  by  140  propositions, 
based  on  magnetic  phenomena.  They  relate  to  the  dis- 
covery of  the  two  points  or  poles  of  greatest  attraction  on 
the  magnet  by  means  of  the  inclined  magnetized  needle 
and  to  the  unew  generation  of  the  same;"  to  magnetic 
attraction  and  repulsion,  and  the  communication  of  mag- 
netism, both  from  the  lodestone  and  from  magnetized 
iron  ;  to  the  increase  of  magnetism  in  magnetic  bodies  ;  to 
the  action  of  one  magnet  upon  another ;  to  the  various 
effects  produced  "in  the  sphere  of  the  horologe  through 
different  positions  of  magnetized  bodies  with  respect  to 
it;"1  to  the  irreparable  loss  of  magnetism  which  happens 
in  the  lodestone  and  in  magnetized  bodies  when  submitted 
to  fire ;  and,  finally,  to  the  magnetization  of  iron,  by 
means  other  than  by  rubbing  it  with  a  lodestone. 

Another  volume  of  Sarpi's  writings,  the  original  of 
which  was  also  destroyed  in  the  same  fire,  contained  674 
propositions  or  "Pensieri"  on  all  kinds  of  subjects,  per- 
taining to  every  branch  of  natural  science.  Fortunately,  a 
copy2  was  made  of  this  before  its  destruction,  which  is  now 
in  the  Library  of  St.  Mark  in  Venice.  Accompanying  the 
manuscript  are  notes,  made  during  the  last  century,  in 
which  Sarpi's  discoveries  are  compared  with  those  then 
claimed  by  Peter  Van  Musschenbroeck  of  Leyden.  This 
gives  a  little  clearer  idea  of  Sarpi's  investigations,  in  that 
it  states  that  he  determined  the  reciprocal  relation  of  one 
magnet  upon  another,  but  did  not  measure  or  determine 
the  magnetic  force:  also  the  action  of  the  magnet  on  iron: 
also  the  manifestation  of  magnetic  activity  around  the 
poles  as  an  atmosphere — or  in  other  words  the  field  of 
force:  also  the  maximum  and  minimum  of  attractive  force 
of  the  magnet  on  the  iron  according  to  the  magnitude  of 

1  This  may  possibly  relate  to  the  supposed  rotary  sphere  of  Peregrinus. 

2  Class  II.,  No.  cxxix.,  cited  by  Bertelli,  Mem.  Sopra  Peregrinus,  p.  88. 


CES ARE'S  DISCOVERY.  227 

the  mass  of  the  latter:  also  the  inversion  of  polarity  which 
may  take  place  during  the  magnetization  of  the  needle, 
although  he  seems  to  have  known  nothing  of  consequent 
poles:  also  magnetic  variation  (but  not  the  variation  of  the 
variation)  and  magnetic  inclination:  also  the  magnetic 
properties  acquired  by  iron  u freely  exposed  to  the  air." 

Robert  Norman's  book,  to  which  I  have  referred  in  the 
preceding  chapter,  was  published  a  few  years  before  Sarpi 
is  believed  to  have  made  his  principal  magnetical  investi- 
gations; and  it  is  altogether  unlikely  that  it  escaped  the 
friar's  attention.  The  Letter  of  Peregrinus  had  been  in 
print  for  more  than  two  decades.  Moreover,  a  manuscript 
of  it  existed,  and  was  at  Sarpi' s  disposal  in  the  Castellan 
Library  of  Venice.  We  are  therefore  justified  in  eliminat- 
ing from  the  two  categories,  before  given,  all  matters 
anticipated  by  Norman  and  Peregrinus,  so  far  as  these  can 
be  recognized.  This  done,  the  net  result  is  to  leave  the 
destruction  of  magnetism  by  fire,  the  magnetization  of 
iron  by  means  other  than  induction  from  a  lodestone — 
afterwards  alluded  to  as  the  acquirement  of  magnetic  prop- 
erties by  iron  freely  exposed  to  air — and  the  existence  of 
the  field  of  force  around  the  magnetic  poles,  now  directly 
made  known  for  the  first  time. 

That  a  lodestone  could  be  deprived  of  its  attractive 
quality  by  heating  it  to  a  high  temperature  was  a  new 
discovery,  which  may  well  have  excited  the  incredulity  of 
those  who  believed  with  Norman  that  the  virtue  in  the 
stone  was  implanted  by  Providence,  and  hence  was  pre- 
sumably ineradicable.  The  revelation  that  iron  could  be 
magnetized  without  the  aid  of  the  stone  at  all  was  not 
original  with  Sarpi,  but  was  the  result  of  an  accidental 
observation  made  by  one  Giulio  Cesare,  a  surgeon  of 
Rimini,  early  in  1586,  and  not  long  before  Sarpi  wrote 
concerning  it.  An  iron  rod  which  supported  a  terra-cotta 
ornament  upon  the  tower  of  a  church  in  the  before-named 
town  had  become  bent  by  the  force  of  the  wind,  and  had 
remained  thus  distorted  for  about  ten  years.  It  was  taken 


I 


228         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

down  and  the  iron  sent  to  a  blacksmith  to  be  straightened, 
and  while  it  lay  in  the  smithy,  Cesare,  by  chance,  noticed 
that  it  possessed  attractive  properties.  By  an  odd  co- 
incidence the  church  was  dedicated  to  St.  Augustine ;  so 
that  one  might  almost  fancy  that  the  influence  of  the  Saint 
whose  discoveries  concerning  the  magnet  have  already 
been  noted,  was  somehow  still  potent  to  lead  others  in  the 
same  path.  The  circumstance  puzzled  the  philosophers 
greatly  ;  for  how,  they  asked,  could  iron  which  is  a  metal 
be  thus  converted  into  lodestone  which  is  a  stone?  For 
the  time  being  the  old  doctrine  of  sympathies  and  simili- 
tudes— the  great  likeness  and  sympathy  between  iron  and 
magnet — furnished  a  sufficient  answer:  but  after  a  few 
years  the  true  explanation  appeared  in  a  great  work,  to 
which  the  orderly  progress  of  this  narrative  forbids  further 
reference  at  present.1 

Although  the  limiting  of  Sarpi's  magnetic  discoveries  to 
the  destruction  of  magnetism  by  heat,  and  the  apparent 
concentration  at  the  poles  of  the  atmosphere  or  virtue 
which  Norman  thought  to  be  spherical  seems  to  be  the 
consequence  of  the  process  of  exclusion  followed,  it  would 
be  unjust  to  the  great  Consul  tore  to  assume  that  there  are 
here  defined  the  actual  metes  and  bounds  of  his  accom- 
plishments in  magnetic  research.  The  evidence  so  far 
adduced  concerning  them  is  at  best  imperfect;  while  it 
must  be  remembered  that  to  depreciate  their  importance 
or  to  obliterate  them  wholly,  powerful  forces  have  acted 
for  centuries. 

Still,  to  have  conceived  the  first  clear  idea  of  the  field 
of  force  about  the  poles  of  a  magnet  is  sufficient  to  give 
the  discoverer  an  undoubted  pre-eminence,  and  that  Sarpi 
did  this  is  not  only  indicated  by  a  comparison  of  his 
reputed  achievements  with  what  was  already  known,  but 
is  strongly  substantiated  by  the  efforts  which  have  been 
made  to  deprive  him  of  all  credit  for  them.  Sarpi  had  no 
worse  enemies  than  the  Jesuits,  whom  he  caused  to  be 

^Idrovanclus  :  Musaeum  Metallicum.     Milan,  1648,  lib.  I,  134. 


FRA   PAOLO.  229 

driven  from  Venice  after  they  had  refused  to  comply  with 
the  statutes  passed  by  the  state  in  contravention  and  de- 
fiance of  the  Pope's  interdict.  The  rancor  against  him, 
which  resulted  in  an  attempt  to  assassinate  him,  and  the 
removal  of  his  remains  nine  times  from  place  to  place  be- 
fore they  found  safe  and  permanent  sepulture,  had  not 
undergone  the  slightest  abatement  when  the  Jesuit  Cab- 
sens,1  six  years  after  Sarpi's  death,  wrote  his  book  on  the 
magnet,  and  with  ingenious  indirection,  proceeded  to  as- 
cribe to  Leonardo  Garzoni,  another  Jesuit  who  died  in 
1592,  the  discoveries  of  which,  as  I  shall  shortly  show, 
John  Baptista  Porta  obtained  knowledge  directly  from 
Sarpi. 

Garzoni  seems  to  have  written,  at  some  indefinite  time 
(but  very  close  to  and  possibly  even  after  the  periods  when 
Sarpi  made  his  researches),  a  treatise  on  the  magnet  which 
he  left  uncompleted.  His  brother,  after  his  death,  an- 
nounced an  intention  of  publishing  it,  but  if  he  did  so, 
Bertelli2  (despite  a  thorough  search  through  all  the  princi- 
pal libraries  of  Italy  and  especially  through  those  in  which 
Cabaeus  found  his  literary  material),  has  been  unable  to 
discover  any  trace  of  it.  He  unearths,  however,  a  book, 
published  in  1642,  which  says  that  Garzoni's  magnetic  dis- 
coveries were  well  known,  and  on  no  better  basis  than  this, 
permits  himself  to  accept,  without  question,  the  assertion 
of  Cabseus  that  the  whole  idea  of  the  field  of  force  origi- 
nated with  Garzoni,  and  hence,  by  necessary  implication, 
not  with  Sarpi.  But  against  the  tacit  opinion  of  even  so 
learned  a  scholar  as  Father  Bertelli,  stands  the  total  lack 
of  evidence  in  favor  of  Garzoni,  and  the  intense  antagon- 
ism to  Fra  Paolo  characteristic  of  the  Jesuits,  in  which 
Cabseus  evidently  shares. 

While,  however,  as  I  have  stated,  proof  of  Sarpi's  dis- 
coveries, based  on  his  own  writings,  is  now  meagre,  it 

1  Philosophia  Magnetica.     Ferrara,  1629,  lib.  i.,  c.  xvi. 

2  Mem.  sopra  Peregrinus,  24. 


230         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

is  probable  that,  through  the  intervention  of  Baptista 
Porta,  we  have  always  been  in  full  possession  of  a  record 
of  his  work:  in  fact,  we  may  not  unreasonably  assume,  of 
a  better  one  than  such  as  may  have  been  contained  in  the 
brief  treatise  which  was  burned:  for  Porta  has  told  in  ex- 
tenso  matters  which  Sarpi  (who  seems  to  have  been  the 
prototype  of  Faraday  in  his  predilection  for  reducing  his 
results  to  brief  paragraphs  and  numbering  them)  would 
have  reported  in  the  most  concise  and  abbreviated  form. 


John  Baptista  Porta  was  a  prodigy.  He  died  in  1615  at 
the  reputed  age  of  seventy,  the  author  of  many  discoveries 
and  many  books  —  the  last  not  all  philosophical  and  scien- 
tific, for  he  is  said  to  have  written  ''fourteen  comedies, 
two  tragedies  and  one  tragi-comedy."  Despite  some  con- 
fusion and  discrepancies  in  dates,  it  appears  to  be  the  fact 
that  he  produced  his  work  on  Natural  Magic,  in  four 
books,1  when  only  sixteen  years  of  age.  It  bears  the  date 
of  1558,  and  deals  learnedly  with  astrology,  abounds  in 
the  wildest  vagaries  on  the  generation  of  animals,  dis- 
cusses agriculture  and  horticulture  in  similar  manner, 
ends  with  an  omnium  gatherum  on  domestic  economy, 
and  has  not,  from  first  to  last,  a  word  about  the  lodestone. 
Despite  his  tender  age,  Porta  seems  to  have  been  the 
moving  spirit  in  what  was  probably  a  ridotto  or  club  of 
persons  interested  in  one  another  and  in  some  especial 
subject,  which  met  for  purposes  of  discussion  and  mutual 
entertainment.  Whatever  the  precise  nature  of  the  assem- 
blage originally  may  have  been,  it  developed  finally  into 
the  first  of  all  learned  societies,  the  Academia  Secretorum 
Naturae  —  abbreviated  ordinarily  into  "the  Segreti,"  in 
which  it  was  an  essential  condition  of  membership  that  the 


Naturalis,  sive  De  Miraculis  Rernm  Naturalium,  lib.  iv.  lo. 
Baptista  Porta  Neapolitan©  Auctore.  Neapoli,  1558.  lo.  Baptista  Portae 
Neapolitan  i:  Magiae  Naturalis,  libri  xx.  Neapoli,  1589.  There  have 
been  many  editions  in  translations. 


JOHN    BAPTISTA   PORTA. 


231 


applicant  should  have  successfully  prosecuted  an  original 
research  in  medicine  or  philosophy.  It  is  said  that,  be- 
cause the  participators  called  themselves  the  uOtiosi "  (idle, 
lazy),  the  people  became  aroused  and  denounced  the  organ- 


ization to  the  Pope  as  a  gang  of  sorcerers;  but  it  is  a  much 
more  reasonable  assumption  that  the  astonishing  state- 
ments in  Porta's  book,  on  such  subjects,  for  example,  as 
the  production  of  birds  and  frogs  from  decaying  matter, 


232         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

had  more  to  do  with  the  indictment  than  any  name  which 
the  members  might  have  chosen  to  assume.  In  fact, 
scores  of  such  societies — mainly  literary — were  organized 
in  Italy  before  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century. 
Tiraboschi  gives  a  list  of  one  hundred  and  seventy-one  of 
them,  and  among  their  designations  were  such  singular 
names  as  "Inflammable,"  u  Pensive,''  "Intrepid,"  "Un- 
ripe," "Drowsy,"  "Rough,"  "Dispirited,"  "Solitary," 
"Fiery,"  "Sympathetic,"  "Grieved,"  "Re-ignited"  and 
"Drunken." 

At  all  events,  Porta,  as  head  and  front  of  the  offending, 
was  summoned  to  Rome,  whence  he  escaped  with  no  worse 
penalty  than  the  dissolution  of  his  society  and  some 
fatherly  advice,  which  indicated  the  extreme  imprudence 
of  ever  starting  it  again.  While  at  Rome  he  gained  the 
favor  of  Cardinal  Luigi  D'Este~  who  gave  him  means  of 
traveling  through  France  and  Spain,  and  who  afterwards 
called  him  to  Venice  to  build  for  him  a  parabolic  mirror. 

By  this  time  Porta's  attainments  had  gained  him  con- 
siderable celebrity.  He  had  studied  optics  closely,  and, 
although  he  did  not  invent  the  camera  obscura  (which  was 
the  work  of  Leon  Baptista  Alberti  nearly  a  century  earlier),1 
he  first  pointed  out  and  taught  the  analogy  between  that 
apparatus  and  the  human  eye.  He  probably  originated 
the  magic  lantern,  however,  and  had  some  notion  of  the 
telescope,  although  his  reference  thereto  is  by  no  means 
unambiguous. 

That  the  most  eminent  natural  philosopher  of  Naples 
should  have  encountered  the  most  eminent  natural  philos- 
opher of  Venice,  and  that  the  two  should  find  in  one 
another  mutual  attraction,  seems  to  have  inevitably  fol- 
lowed. Porta  instantly  assumed  the  role  of  pupil,  as  most 
men  did  who  came  in  contact  with  Sarpi,  whatever  their 
callings  or  attainments  might  be;  and  Sarpi,  who  delighted 
in  teaching,  found  in  Porta  a  congenial  and  tireless  disci- 
ple. Nor  did  this  relation  cease  even  after  great  honors 

Tiraboschi:  Storia  della  Lett.  Ital.     Firenze,  1810,  vol.  vii.,  495. 


PORTA   AND  SARPI.  233 

had  come  to  the  Venetian;  for  when,  as  Procurator  of  his 
Order,  he  made  an  official  visitation  to  Naples,  it  was  with 
Porta  that  he  sojourned,  and  into  Porta's  eager  ears  poured 
the  story  of  the  magnetic  researches  which  he  had  then 
just  completed.  The  Neapolitan  had  reached  middle  age, 
and  for  thirty-five  years  had  been  collecting  material  to 
add  to  the  work  on  Natural  Magic.  Perhaps  he  deemed 
this  latest  teaching  of  Sarpi  the  cap-sheaf  of  all,  and  an 
indication  that  the  auspicious  time  for  publication  had 
come.  He  had  been  admitted  to  the  great  Academy  of  the 
L,yncei,  and,  shrewdly  considering  that  nothing  issued  un- 
der such  sanction  would  be  taken  as  savoring  of  the  black 
art,  he  induced  that  society  to  give  the  work,  now  extended 
to  twenty  books,  its  official  approval.  This  completed 
edition  appeared  in  1589.  The  seventh  book  is  devoted 
wholly  to  the  magnet,  and  is  one  of  the  longest  in  the 
volume.  Cabaeus  intimates  that  it  is  merely  an  epitome 
of  knowledge  gained  by  Porta  from  Garzoni;  and  Bertelli, 
perceiving  the  necessity  of  bringing  the  two  men  at  least 
into  geographical  proximity,  thinks  that  Porta  may  have 
met  the  Jesuit  when  he  went  to  Venice  to  make  the  Car- 
dinal's mirror. 

But  this  is  disposed  of  by  Porta  himself,  who,  in  his 
preface  to  his  book  on  the  magnet,  says  uWe  knew 
among  the'  Venetians  Paulus  Venetus,  vigilant  in  this 
study.  He  was  of  the  order  of  Serviti,  then  a  Provincial, 
now  most  worthy  Procurator,  from  whom  we  not  only  do 
not  blush  to  have  copied,  but  we  rejoice  therein,  since  we 
know  no  one  than  he  more  learned  or  more  subtle  among 
those  that  we  have  seen.  He  was  born  to  universal  knowl- 
edge, and  is  an  ornament  not  merely  to  the  city  of  Venice 
and  to  Italy,  but  to  the  world.  If  we  begin  from  his  funda- 
mental ideas  and  proceed  to  his  completed  studies  of  tran- 
scendent sublimity  and  accurate  labor,  we  shall  never  be 
disappointed.'7  Sarpi  was  Provincial  of  his  order  from 
1579  to  1582,  so  that,  at  the  time  Porta's  work  appeared, 
the  two  men  must  have  been  in  communication  for  more 
than  seven  years. 


234         TH3  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Porta's  writing  bears  all  the  ear-marks  of  the  compiler. 
It  is  exceedingly  diffuse,  often  self-contradictory,  and  the 
same  fact  is  repeated  over  and  over  again  in  different 
guises,  as  if  the  change  in  form  were  regarded  as  involv- 
ing a  material  change  in  substance.  Much  that  is  set 
down  may  be  laid  out  of  sight  at  once,  since  it  is  merely  a 
re-statement  of  the  discoveries  of  Peregrinus.  The  phe- 
nomena of  attraction  and  repulsion,  the  mode  of  determin- 
ing the  poles  and  the  persistence  of  the  poles  in  a  divided 
magnet,  are  all  described  as  by  Peregrinus  with  no  material 
variation,  except  that  in  the  last-named  instance  Porta  car- 
ries the  separation  further,  and  finds  the  poles  "in  the 
smallest  fragments  as  well  as  in  the  great  magnetic  rock." 

It  requires  but  little  critical  study  of  this  treatise  to  reach 
the  conclusion  that  the  notion  of  the  field  of  force  was  re- 
garded as  by  far  the  most  important  subject  within  the 
knowledge  of  its  writer,  or  more  correctly,  of  the  individ- 
ual from  whom  that  knowledge  was  acquired.  It  is  re- 
curred to  over  and  over  again,  examined  from  many  points 
of  view  and  tested  in  many  different  ways;  so  that  we  may 
almost  see  the  conception  grow  as  experiment  made  it 
clearer.  This  growth  I  shall  now  briefly  trace. 

Porta,  having  pointed  out  that  the  magnetic  virtue  and 
polarity  remains,  even  when  the  stone  is  divided  into  mi- 
nute grains,  avers  that  when  these  grains  are  brought  to- 
gether, the  strength  of  all  will  become  unitary.  Then  he 
says,  u  But  what  is  more  wonderful,  although  the  strength 
may  be  received  in  the  middle  of  the  stone,  it  is  not  dif- 
fused at  the  middle  but  at  the  extremities  of  the  polar  lines 
and  .  .  .  comes  forth  openly"  Not  long  afterwards,  we 
encounter  an  experiment  which  consists  in  grinding  a 
magnet  into  the  minutest  grains  and  mixing  it  with  some 
inert  white  substance.  Then,  for  the  mystification  of  the 
bystanders — and  Porta  delights  in  that  sort  of  thing — a 
magnet,  hidden  by  a  cloth,  is  brought  up  to  the  mass.  At 
once  the  magnet  grains  rush  to  the  stone,  packing  them 
selves  densely 


PORTA  ON  THE  FIELD  OF  FORCE.  235 

chin;"  or  in  other  words,  behaving  just  as  do  the  well- 
known  iron  filings.  (Porta  sees  at  once  the  possibility  of 
drawing  iron  out  of  sand  mixed  with  the  ore  by  this 
means,  and  mentions  it.)  "This  shock  of  hairs,"  he  says, 
u  adheres  to  the  stone  so  persistently  that  they  can  hardly 
be  detached:  even  when  the  stone  is  struck  by  a  hammer, 
or  two  stones  covered  with  them  are  nibbed  together, 
still  they  stick  on.  They  stand  erect  like  spurs,  and  the 
more  the  stone  is  rubbed  by  another  stone,  the  more  they 
congregate."  So  much  Lucretius  had  also  seen  in  the 
Samothracian  marvels. 

But  now  follows  the  direct  recognition  of  the  field — "It 
is  to  be  noted  that  the  point  diffuses  virtue  in  its  sphere  as 
from  centre  to  circumference,  and  just  like  the  light  of  a 
candle,  which  is  diffused  everywhere  and  illuminates  a 
chamber,  and  the  further  it  recedes  the  more  languidly  it 
glows;  and  after  a  little  further  movement,  it  is  lost;  and 
then,  as  much  as  it  approaches  nearer,  the  more  vividly  it 
shines.  In  the  same  way,  this  force  emanates  from  the 
point;  and  the  nearer  the  latter,  the  more  strongly  it 
draws,  while  the  greater  the  distance  the  more  it  is  remiss: 
so  that,  if  it  recedes  much,  it  vanishes  and  does  nothing; 
therefore,  in  place  of  any  other  term  we  will  call  the  ex- 
tent of  its  power  'the  sphere  of  its  virtue.'  "  l 

What  more  was  there  left  in  substance  to  discover  as  to 
the  law  of  magnetic  attraction  and  repulsion?  Every  par- 
ticle of  matter  in  the  universe,  Newton  tells  us,  "attracts 

1  Literal  translation— The  English  edition  of  Porta's  Natural  Magick 
(London,  1658,)  renders  the  passage  as  follows :  "Giving  you  to  under- 
stand that  the  Pole  sends  its  force  to  the  Circumference.  And  as  the 
light  of  a  Candle  is  spread  everyway,  and  enlightens  the  Chamber;  and 
the  farther  it  is  off  from  it,  the  weaker  it  shines,  and  at  too  great  a  dis- 
tance is  lost;  and  the  neerer  it  is,  the  more  cleerly  it  illuminates:  so  the 
force  flies  forth  at  that  point ;  and  the  neerer  it  is,  the  more  forcibly  it 
attracts ;  and  the  further  off,  the  more  faintly  :  and  if  it  be  set  too  far 
off,  it  vanisheth  quite,  and  doth  nothing.  Wherefore  for  that  we  shall 
say  of  it,  and  mark  it  for,  we  shall  call  the  length  of  its  force  the  com- 
pass of  its  Virtues."  Note  passim  the  old  use  of  the  English  word 
"compass"  for  "sphere." 


236         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

every  other  particle  with  a  force  whose  direction  is  that 
of  a  line  joining  the  two  and  whose  magnitude  ...  is 
inversely  as  the  square  of  their  distance  from  each  other." 
Light  radiation  equally  moves  in  a  straight  line,  and  its 
intensity  varies  as  the  square  of  the  distance  between  the 
surface  on  which  it  falls  and  the  source  of  radiation. 
Those  are  the  laws  of  the  phenomena  stated  in  the  fore- 
going quotation.  Put  the  two  together,  and  the  result  is 
Michell's  sixth  law,  first  expressed  in  1750  :  "The  Attrac- 
tion and  Repulsion  of  Magnets  decrease  as  the  squares  of 
the  distances  from  the  respective  Poles  increase."1 
Neither  Sarpi,  who  had  so  narrowly  studied  the  human 
eye  and  had  dived  into  the  deeps  of  all  existing  optical 
knowledge,  nor  even  Porta  who  had  followed  -him,  could 
perhaps  have  expressed  that  law  as  Michell  did  a  couple  of 
centuries  later;  but  they  knew  how  the  light  of  a  candle 
increased  and  diminished,  and  they  saw  the  resemblance 
between  this  and  the  increase  and  diminution  of  the  virtue 
around  the  poles  of  a  magnet.  How  better  could  they 
state  their  knowledge  than  by  making  the  comparison  and 
pointing  out  the  resemblance? 

But  let  us  go  a  little  further.  Whenever  Porta  becomes 
grave  and  states  an  important  fact,  he  shortly  afterwards 
relaxes  and  tells  about  u  jokes  of  the  magnet  with  which 
we  often  exhilarate  friends,"  and  such  parts  of  the  book 
are  undoubtedly  his  own.  He  is  particularly  fond  of  the 
iron-filings  experiment,  and,  after  stating  the  similarity  of 
the  sphere  of  magnetic  attraction  to  the  candle  radiations, 
he  recurs  to  it.  This  time  he  places  on  a  table  two  masses 
of  magnet  fragments,  and,  holding  a  lodestone  in  each 
hand  under  the  table,  he  makes  the  particles  move,  as  he 
fancied,  to  represent  contending  armies.  The  individual 
grains  rise  up  like  erected  spears,  and  advance  and  re- 
treat and  enter  into  "deadly  struggles,  now  conquering, 
now  conquered,  now  with  arms  raised,  now  lowered;"  and 
then,  in  the  midst  of  the  play,  he  remarks,  u  the  nearer 

'Michell,  J.:  A  Treatise  of  Artificial  Magnets,  London,  1750.  19. 


PORTA' s  THEORIES.  237 

the  magnet  approaches  the  more  strongly  the  force  extends 
its  sphere,"  which  to  him  is  confirmatory  of  the  light 
analogy. 

The  ingenuity  which  could  evolve  this  conception  was 
not  slow  to  perceive  the  consequences.  Iron  is  visibly  at- 
tracted when  placed  in  that  sphere  of  virtue,  but  does  any- 
thing else  happen  to  it?  Here  is  the  answer,  "Not  alone 
by  adhesion  does  the  magnet  diffuse  its  virtue  to  the  iron, 
but,  what  is  more  wonderful,  within  the  radii  of  its  own 
virtue  it  causes  virtue  in  the  iron.  For,  if  you  approach  a 
magnet  to  iron,  so  that  the  latter  may  be  in  the  sphere  of 
virtue,  this  iron  will  attract  another  iron,  and  the  one  so 
attracted  will  draw  another,  and  thus  you  may  see  a  chain 
of  needles  or  rings  in  the  air  hanging."  (The  Samothra- 
cian  rings,  with  the  upper  one  not  in  contact  with  the 
lodestone  but  magnetized  therefrom  by  induction.)  "But 
while  the  chain  exists,  if  you  gradually  remove  the  magnet 
for  a  short  distance,  the  last  ring  falls,  and  then  the  next, 
and  so  on  in  succession  all  fall,  and  thus  you  see  the  stone 
is  able  to  cause  its  virtue  in  the  iron  without  contact." 

It  is  curious  to  note  how  this  led  Porta  into  a  false  con- 
clusion. He  supposed  that  the  sphere  of  virtue  around  the 
magnet  had  a  definite  outer  limit  whereat  the  radii  of  virtue 
ended;  and  that,  so  long  as  it  overlapped  a  certain  num- 
ber of  rings,  all  would  remain  suspended;  but,  if  its  centre 
were  retracted,  so  that  the  last  ring  were  left  out  of  the 
sphere,  then  that  ring  would  fall.  Consequently,  he  says, 
if  you  try  to  magnetize  a  bar  three  feet  long  with  a  stone 
having  a  sphere  of  only  two  feet  radius,  you  cannot  do  it 
except  over  two  feet  of  the  bar  ;  the  protruding  one  foot 
will  be  inert.  Neither  Porta  nor  Sarpi  (seen  through  him) 
appears  to  have  had  any  idea  of  the  virtue  extending  from 
pole  to  pole,  or  to  have  made  any  deductions  from  the 
positions  assumed  by  the  inclined  needles  of  Peregrinus  or 
Norman.  But  their  knowledge  of  a  field  of  force  and  of 
magnetic  induction  due  thereto  was  certainly  well  defined. 

The  many  other  discoveries  which  Porta  records  may 


238         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

now  briefly  be  stated.  The  destruction  of  magnetization 
by  high  temperature  seems  to  have  been  found  by  burning 
the  lodestone,  which,  when  surrounded  by  heaped-up  coals, 
em  its  a  ublue,  sulphurous  and  iron  flame;  and,  at  the  same 
time,  with  the  dissipation  of  this,  the  soul  of  the  magnet 
departs  and  it  loses  its  attractive  power."  The  suggestion 
by  Peregrinus  of -measuring  the  force  of  the  magnet  is  car- 
ried into  practical  effect,  and  the  strength  determined  is 
that  required  to  resist  separation  of  the  armature  from  the 
magnet,  which  is  arranged  in  one  pan  of  a  balance.  The 
fact  is  noted  that,  while  the  magnetic  virtue  passes  freely 
through  brass,  etc.,  iron  acts  as  a  screen  to  cut  it  off.  The 
guarding  of  compass  needles  after  they  are  magnetized 
from  proximity  with  lodestones  is  strongly  advised,  lest 
"they  be  inebriated;"  and  clean  iron  is  said  to  receive  the 
virtue  much  more  tenaciously  than  metal  containing  rust 
or  earthy  matters.  Here  occurs  the  first  mention  of  the 
fact  that  u sailors  prefer  steel"  for  compass  needles — 
"  which  will  keep  its  value  for  a  hundred  years."  Iron 
filings,  we  are  told,  wrapped  in  paper,  receive  virtue  like  a 
solid  magnet,  but,  if  they  are  shaken,  they  lose  it. 

Porta's  recital  abounds  in  absurdities,  many  of  which 
are  due  to  experimental  errors.  His  theory  of  the  cause 
of  the  attraction  of  the  lodestone  is  correlated  to  the  ob- 
served behavior  of  the  iron  filings;  for  he  considers  the 
magnetic  forces  to  be  due  to  minute  particles  of  the  stone 
springing  from  friction  and  concentrated  into  hairs,  which, 
becoming  attached  to  iron,  impart  thereto  magnetic  virtue. 
Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  he  believed  with  Alexander  of 
Aphrodiseus  that  the  lodestone  actually  fed  on  iron,  and 
therefore  buried  a  stone  surrounded  by  filings  and  occasion- 
ally exhumed  it  to  note  without  success  the  amount  de- 
voured. He  imagined  that  iron  rubbed  by  a  diamond 
would  become  magnetic,  and  so  avers;  and,  he  believed 
that  a  magnet  has  east  and  west,  as  well  as  north  and  south, 
poles.  A  closer  analysis  of  his  work  will  show  many  more 
such  delusions,  and,  to  counterbalance  them,  suggestions 
which  perhaps  proved  the  germs  of  later  useful  discoveries. 


THE   FIRST  NOTION  OF  THE  TELEGRAPH.  239 

The  rise  which  we  have  been  tracing  has  been  followed 
mainly  through  effects  which,  although  of  like  nature,  are 
commonly  defined  as  magnetic  rather  than  electric;  and  all 
roads  have  led  us  to  the  mariner's  compass  as  a  ne plus 
ultra  of  invention.  But  now  Porta  begins  an  advance 
movement.  The  doctrine  of  sympathies  and  similitudes 
is  still  in  force,  and  it  is  common  belief  that  nowhere  is 
sympathy  stronger  or  likeness  closer  than  between  magnet 
and  magnet.  Meanwhile,  there  has  arisen  the  conception 
of  the  sphere  of  virtue  surrounding  the  lodestone.  Con- 
jectures as  to  the  extent  of  that  sphere  have  become  con- 
fused with  speculations  as  to  the  potency  of  the  sympa- 
thetic influence,  and  out  of  all  this  has  grown  a  curious 
notion  that  distance  is  no  bar  to  the  mutual  effects  of  mag- 
nets, that  they  will  even  copy  one  another's  positions,  so 
that,  if  one  magnet  point  in  a  certain  direction,  a  second 
and  sympathetic  magnet  will  indicate  the  same  direction, 
even  if  they  be  situated  far  asunder.  A  step  further  and 
Porta's  thought  thus  leaps  ahead  : 

"  To  a  friend,  that  is  at  a  far  distance  from  us,  fast  shut 
up  in  prison,  we  may  relate  our  minds;  which  I  do  not 
doubt  may  be  done  by  two  Mariner's  compasses  having  the 
alphabet  writ  about  them." 

So  came  into  the  world  the  fancy  which  finds  its  modern 
embodiment  in  the  great  wire  cobweb  which  envelops  the 
earth  and  brings  all  people  into  converse,  as  it  were  face  to 
face.  Yet  this  initial  notion  of  the  telegraph  is  of  less 
historical  significance  than  the  fact  that  Porta  is  here,  for 
the  first  time,  seeking  to  put  the  pivoted  magnet  needle  to 
a  new  use.  In  other  words,  he  is  trying  to  invent  beyond 
the  compass;  and  he  is  taking  from  it  as  his  instrumentality 
the  pivoted  needle  moving  in  and  controlled  by  a  surround- 
ing virtue.  A  few  more  years  and  it  will  be  this  same  in- 
strument in  another  hand,  which  will  usher  in  electricity 
as  a  distinct  manifestation  of  natural  force  and  as  the 
world  now  knows  it. 


240         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Ill  tracing  the  history  of  magnetic  discovery,  and  es- 
pecially that  of  the  conception  of  the  field  of  force,  it  has 
been  necessary,  in  order  to  avoid  complication,  to  lose 
sight,  for  a  time,  of  the  progress  which  the  world  was 
making  toward  a  better  recognition  of  the  phenomenon 
of  the  amber.  At  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  the 
identity  of  the  attractive  force  exercised  by  magnet  and 
amber  was  generally  accepted  as  certain.  No  one  thought 
of  seriously  disputing  the  matter,  no  reason  for  investi- 
gating an  occurrence  so  manifest  obtruded  itself,  and  no 
practical  employment  of  amber  in  any  wise  akin  to  that 
of  the  magnet  invited  research  to  discover  what  further 
occult  capabilities  the  resin  might  possess.  By  the  end 
of  the  century,  however,  the  use  of  the  compass  had 
brought  people  into  greater  familiarity  with  the  lodestone, 
and,  as  the  knowledge  of  it  increased,  the  time  approached 
when  differences  between  amber  attraction  and  magnet 
attraction  began  to  excite  remark.  But  this  was  the 
period  when  the  Greek  influence,  which  attended  the  re- 
vival of  learning  after  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  was 
making  itself  felt  throughout  all  Europe.  The  new  school 
of  Platonists,  under  the  leadership  of  Marsilio  Ficino1  the 
Florentine,  challenged  the  supremacy  of  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy,  and  precipitated  new  discussions  which  di- 
vided the  learned  into  opposing  camps,  wherein  the  wordy 
warfare  raged  and  the  experimental  study  of  nature  was 
forgotten.  Yet  it  was  Ficino  himself  who  virtually  re- 
peated the  question  asked  centuries  before  by  St.  Augus- 
tine, by  suggesting  a  difference  between  the  amber  and 
the  magnet;  not,  be  it  observed,  by  describing  the  respec- 
tive phenomena  and  comparing  the  facts — for  that  would 
be  far  below  the  dignity  of  any  Platonist,  new  or  old — but 
by  promulgating  a  speculation  on  the  subject,  which  could 
have  arisen  only  from  some  previous  knowledge  based 
upon  the  actual  observation  of  such  a  difference. 

He  says  that  iron  is  rendered  magnetic,  and  maintained 

1  Born  1433,  died  1499. 


FRACASTORIO.  241 

so,  by  rays  from  the  Bear — that  is,  the  North  star  or  Arctic 
pole — and  the  u  lodestoiie  attracts  iron  because  of  a  superior 
grade  in  the  properties  of  the  Bear."  Following  the  pre- 
vailing notions,  he  would  naturally  have  accounted  for  the 
attractive  quality  of  amber  in  the  same  way;  for,  as  I  have 
stated,  no  one  had  drawn  any  distinction  between  the  effects 
of  the  stone  and  the  resin.  But  it  is  significant  to  note 
that  Ficino  does  not  do  this,  because  he  has  clearly  found 
out  that,  while  the  magnet  attracts  iron  and  points  to  the 
North  pole  and  hence  is  controlled  by  the  latter,  amber 
does  not  attract  iron  but  chaff,  and  does  not  point  to  the 
North  pole  at  all.  Yet  because  iron,  under  a  supposed 
control,  attracts,  so  some  control  must  likewise  be  assumed 
for  amber,  because  it  also  has  an  attractive  quality,  although 
of  a  different  character.  Therefore  he  triumphantly  con- 
cludes that  it  is  not  the  Arctic  pole,  but  the  Antarctic 
pole  which  influences  the  resin — and  the  argument  stands 
forth  in  symmetrical  perfection;  the  lodestone  is  a  thing, 
which  is  caused  to  attract  iron  by  the  Arctic  pole :  the 
amber  is  a  thing,  which  is  caused  to  attract  chaff  by  the 
Antarctic  pole. 

Many  years  after  Ficino' s  time,  Jerome  Fracastorio,1 
poet,  physician  and  philosopher  of  Verona,  reverts  to  the 
old  doctrine  of  similitudes  to  deny  its  application  to  the 
magnet  and  the  amber,  and  incidentally,  for  the  first  time, 
announces  that  the  amber  property  exists  in  another 
natural  body — the  diamond;  for  the  gem,  he  says,  when 
rubbed,  will  attract  hairs  and  twigs  in  the  same  way  as 
the  amber. 

He  is  much  more  concerned,  however,  in  evolving  a  new 
theory  which  will  explain  why  hairs  and  twigs  are  thus 
attracted,  when  clearly  there  is  no  affinity  between  such 
substances  and  the  amber  or  the  diamond,  than  in  record- 
ing experimental  details.  Yet  he  also  sees  clearly  that  the 
attracting  bodies  are  widely  different  from  one  another; 

1  Born  1483,  died  1553.     Authorities  differ  as  to  the  orthography  of  the 
name,  some  giving  it  as  Fracastoro,  others  as  Fracastorio. 
16 


242          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

so  that,  even  granting  hairs  to  have  an  affinity  for  the 
resin,  that  fact  in  itself,  to  his  mind,  seems  to  negative  the 
idea  of  their  possessing  any  similar  affinity  for  the  gem. 
The  discovery  of  another  substance  which,  while  different 
from  either  magnet  or  amber,  still  possesses  the  same  sin- 
gular drawing  power,  is  of  no  importance  to  him  in  com- 
parison with  getting  these  stubborn  facts  within  the  safe 
confines  of  a  new  theory — a  conclusion  eminently  charac- 
teristic of  his  time.  And  he  is  not  unsuccessful — at  least, 
to  his  own  satisfaction.  The  amber  and  the  diamond,  he 
finally  announces,  do  not  attract  hairs  and  twigs  because 
hairs  and  twigs  are  hairs  and  twigs;  but  because,  in  the 
thing  attracted,  there  is  a  principle,  perhaps  in  the  in- 
cluded air,  which  is  first  drawn  by  the  analogous  principle 
existing  in  the  thing  attracting.  In  other  words,  the  re- 
ciprocal attraction  and  repulsion  of  the  magnet,  the  amber 
or  the  diamond,  depends  upon  whether  the  principles  enter- 
ing into  their  composition — principles  of  a  spiritual  char- 
acter apparently — are  analogous  or  contrary.1 

This  was  published  in  1546.  Fracastorio  had  then  at- 
tained great  fame  as  a  physician — a  fame  which  lives  yet; 
for  he  was  the  first  to  assert  that  contagion  is  due  to  "  in- 
visible effluvia"  and  not  to  occult  causes,  and  to  dis- 
tinguish the  exanthematic  typhus  of  the  plague,  which, 
up  to  that  time,  included  all  the  grave  epidemic  maladies; 
while  from  the  hero  of  his  famous  poem  comes  the  name 
of  that  hideous  disease  of  which  the  Old  World  is  said  to 
have  known  nothing  until  after  the  discovery  of  the  New. 
That  his  simple  opinion  that  Trent  was  unhealthy  should 
have  resulted  in  the  removal  of  a  great  council  of  the 
Church  from  that  town  to  Bologna,  is  sufficient  to  show 
the  immense  influence  he  exerted.2  The  announcement 
of  the  foregoing  theory  by  so  high  an  authority  therefore 

1Hier.  Fracastorii,  Veronensis:  Opera  Omnia.  Venice,  1555.  Lib. 
de  Sympathia  et  Antipathia. 

2  Biographic  Universelle,  Art.  Fracastorio.  La  Grande  Encyclopedic, 
Paris,  1893,  Vol.  17. 


JEROME   CARDAN. 


243 


may  well  have  been  considered  conclusive  as  to  the  identity 
of  magnetic  and  electric  attraction.  Yet  within  a  very 
few  years  it  was  challenged. 


On  the  24th  of  September,  1501,  there  was  born  in 
Milan  the  first  of  that  trio  of  Italian  philosophers  whose 
achievements  in  physical  science  seem  all  the  more  bril- 
liant by  contrast  with  the  ignorance  and  superstition  of  the 
period  covered  by  their  lives.  To  two  of  these  men — Fra 
Paolo  Sarpi  and  John  Baptista  Porta — some  reference  has 
already  been  made.  Girolamo  Cardano,1  or  Jerome  Car- 


dan, as  his  name  is  commonly  Anglicized,  belonged  to  the 
generation  immediately  preceding  theirs;  but  the  three 
lives  overlapped,  and  much  of  their  work  was  done  con- 
temporaneously. There  is  little  resemblance  to  the  mer- 
curial, inquisitive,  precocious  Porta,  still  less  to  the 

1Morley,  H.:  The  Life  of  Girolamo  Cardano  of  Milan,  Physician. 
The  portrait  of  Cardan  here  given  is  from  a  contemporary  print  forming 
the  frontispiece  of  the  1553  edition  of  his  treatise,  De  rerum  Varietate. 
The  statement  of  his  age  as  49  years  does  not  accord  with  the  date  of  his 
birth  as  given  by  his  biographers. 


244         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

majestic  figure  of  the  Venetian  Consul  tore,  in  the  person- 
ality of  Cardan;  yet  he  far  exceeded  the  former  in  inge- 
nuity, and  probably  (statecraft  and  theology  excepted)  he 
equalled  the  latter  in  the  variety  and  profundity  of  his  at- 
tainments. Cardan's  character  was  a  bundle  of  contradic- 
tions— his  life,  a  series  of  vicissitudes;  and  hence,  as  this 
or  that  group  of  traits  or  events  is  selected  as  typical,  so 
he  may  be  made  out  a  martyr  and  a  philosopher,  or  a  char- 
latan and  a  magician.  He  was  the  natural  son  of  an  aged 
Milanese  geometer,  who  made  him  a  wretched  drudge, 
until,  astonished  by  the  learning  the  boy  had  managed  to 
acquire  under  difficulties,  the  disheartening  quality  of 
which  he  of  all  the  world  knew  best,  he  consented  to  enter 
him  as  a  medical  student  in  Pavia.  Thence  Cardan  went 
to  the  University  of  Padua,  the  affairs  of  which  were  in 
great  disorder.  For  years  there  had  been  no  rector,  mainly 
because  no  one  wanted  the  place.  Cardan  offered  himself 
and  was  elected  by  one  vote.  But  the  honor  was  empty. 
The  mother,  slaving  at  menial  labor  in  Milan,  worked  to 
defray  the  bare  official  charges.  The  symbols  of  his  mock- 
majesty,  if  he  had  them — his  robes  of  scarlet  and  purple 
silk  and  his  gold  and  jeweled  badges,  his  fife-players  and 
his  spearmen  and  all  the  stately,  ceremonial  appurtenances 
of  the  office — were  paid  for,  if  at  all,  from  the  proceeds  of 
the  gaming  table.  He  called  his  term  of  office  his  u  Sar- 
danapalan  year;"  the  University  sardonically  termed  it 
the  last  of  the  ten  years  in  which  there  was  no  rector. 

In  time  he  became  a  doctor,  and  practised  in  a  little 
village,  and  wrote  books  on  therapeutics  and  the  plague. 
His  health  was  wretched — his  poverty,  extreme.  His 
marriage  helped  him  a  little;  but  an  inordinate  passion  for 
gambling  resulted  in  chronic  destitution.  The  Milan 
physicians  would  not  permit  him  to  practice  because  of  his 
origin;  but  a  lectureship  on  geography,  geometry  and  as- 
tronomy yielded  a  pittance  sufficient  to  ward  off  starvation. 
So  he  lived,  writing  more  treatises,  mainly  on  the  subjects 
of  his  lectures,  and  developing  a  genius  for  fancies  and 


JEROME  CARDAN.  245 

dreams  which  hardened  eventually  into  a  superstition  a§ 
controlling  and  as  uncontrollable  as  the  attraction  of  the 
dice-box.  But  he  had  a  fine  taste  for  music,  he  loved  the 
melodious  words  of  Petrarch  and  Pulci,  he  read  Aristotle 
and  Plotinus  for  pleasure;  and  even  if  the  scanty  contents 
of  his  purse  were  the  products  of  his  gambling  skill,  they 
went  for  no  grosser  pleasures  than  expensive  writing  ma- 
terials and  rare  books.  Add  to  this  that  he  was  a  skillful 
physician — especially  for  those  days — and,  though  blunt 
in  speech,  warm-hearted  and  charitable  almost  to  ex- 
tremes, and  we  may  safely  leave  his  condemnation  to  those 
inerrant  moralists  who  believe  that  there  are  no  virtues, 
however  great,  which  the  small  vices  cannot  eclipse. 

The  dream  fancies  gradually  acquired  a  stronger  hold — 
astrology,  first  critically  examined,  became  entangled  with 
his  faith — the  casting  of  a  horoscope  of  Christ  brought  him 
perilously  near  to  prison  for  blasphemy,  and  a  book  point- 
ing out  errors  in  medical  practice  called  down  upon  him 
with  renewed  vigor  that  uncompromising  odium  which 
the  elderly  medical  tortoise,  even  to  this  day,  especially 
reserves  for  the  youthful  medical  hare.  The  people  said 
he  was  mad — made  so  by  poverty;  the  inordinate  number 
of  printers'  errors  in  his  book,  which  he  himself  says 
drove  him  nearly  to  distraction  would  have  furnished  a 
more  probable  reason. 

Thus  he  lived  until  nearly  forty-five  years  of  age  before 
the  tide  of  his  fortunes  began  to  turn.  In  1545  he  pub- 
lished his  great  work  on  algebra,  wherein  he  laid  down 
rules  for  all  forms  and  varieties  of  cubic  equations,  estab- 
lished the  literal  notation,  applied  this  form  of  mathe- 
matics to  the  resolution  of  geometrical  problems,  and 
accomplished  other  results  of  great  importance,  though  of 
too  technical  a  character  to  be  noted  here.  Up  to  this 
time,  he  had  written  in  all  some  fifty-three  treatises.  His 
success  as  a  physician  now  began  to  tell,  and  resulted  in 
his  Milan  brethren,  after  twelve  years  of  denial,  giving 
him  the  stamp  of  regularity.  The  rapidity  of  his  rise  was 


246         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

phenomenal.  From  the  half-starved,  unpaid,  flouted  stu- 
dent barely  able  to  keep  body  and  soul  together,  his  ad- 
vice, in  less  than  ten  years,  was  sought  by  the  Emperor 
himself,  by  the  King  of  France  for  the  Queen  of  Scotland, 
and  by  the  majesty  of  England,  then  embodied  in  the  weak- 
ling son  of  Henry  VIII.  He  journeyed  in  state  throughout 
Europe  —  men  of  rank  and  learning  everywhere  eager  to 
obtain  his  aid  or  recognition.  And  finally,  after  his 
travels,  he  returned  to  Milan,  loaded  with  honors  and  re- 
wards, the  undisputed  greatest  living  authority  in  the 
healing  art. 

The  temptation  to  dwell  upon  the  dramatic  episodes  of 
Cardan's  later  life  —  ending,  as  it  did,  in  crushing  sorrow  — 
is  strong,  but  must  be  resisted,  to  proceed  at  once  to  the 
remarkable  work  which  will  always  hold  a  prominent 
place  in  the  history  of  electricity:  for  in  it,  for  the  first 
time,  the  phenomena  of  the  amber  are  clearly  differenti- 
ated from  those  of  the  magnet. 

Cardan's  Books  on  Subtilty  occupied,  in  the  writing, 
three  years,  and  were  published  at  Nuremberg  and  Paris 
in  1  55  1.1  The  work  attained  an  enormous  popularity,  and 
well  it  might  —  for  it  was  calculated  to  arouse  the  keenest 
curiosity,  in  that  it  related  to  "subtle"  things  or  those 
which  are  "sensible  by  the  senses  or  intelligible  by  the 
intellect,  but  with  difficulty  comprehended."  It  is  hardly 
possible  to  figure  to  one's  self  a  book  nowadays  claiming 
to  be  a  treatise  on  everything  not  easily  understood;  but, 
at  that  time,  such  a  work  was  a  welcome  improvement 
upon  and  a  distinct  advance  beyond  the  old  De  Natura 
Rerum  treatises,  whereof  I  have  noted  numerous  exam- 
ples, and  which  generally  undertook  to  explain  not  only 
"things  with  difficulty  comprehended,"  but,  with  equal 
ease  and  readiness,  things  not  comprehended  at  all.  It  is 
a  curious  medley,  discussing  abstruse  mathematics  and 


.  Cardani,  Medici  Mediol:  De  Subtilitate,  Lib.  xxi.  Paris,  1551. 
There  have  been  numerous  later  editions.  The  first  French  translation 
is  dated  1556,  and  this  I  have  used. 


JEROME  CARDAN.  247 

dreams,  hydrostatics  and  fortune  telling,  metallurgy  and 
card  tricks.  It  stands  squarely  on  the  dividing  line  be- 
tween mediaeval  magic  and  modern  physical  science. 
That  the  sixteenth  century  reader  might  well  have  re- 
garded the  work  as  be-deviled  it  is  easy  to  imagine.  If  he 
trusted  himself  to  the  figments  of  the  author's  boiling 
i  in  agination,  he  found  himself  in  the  end  disconcerted 
with  the  dry  remark  that  "many  things  appear  admirable 
until  the  cause  is  known  ;  then  admiration  ceases  :'V  if  he 
pinned  his  faith  only  to  the  statements  of  fact,  again  he 
is  laughed  at  and  told  that  "some  things  seem  more  true 
than  they  are — others  are  more  true  than  they  seem." 
The  bewildered  disciple,  especially  if  imbued  with  the 
philosopher's  faith  in  demons  and  ghosts  and  apparitions, 
may  well  regard  this  as  the  nimbleness  of  Mephisto,  and, 
recalling  Cardan's  wonderful  cures  and  vast  learning,  his 
strange  luck  at  gambling,  his,  at  times,  reckless  prodi- 
gality and  dissolute  existence,  may  see  in  the  Milanese 
doctor  another  Faust  and  the  slave  of  a  Satanic  compact. 
But  another  and  final  contradiction  awaits  him  on  the  very 
last  page  of  the  book,  where  he  finds  this  child  of  the 
devil,  prostrate  as  "an  humble  worm  of  the  earth,"  ac- 
knowledging, in  a  prayer  of  singular  beauty,  that  "to 
Thee  I  owe  all  that  is  here  written  in  truth,"  that  "the 
errors  and  faults  are  of  mine  own  ambition,  rashness  and 
haste,"  and  imploring  for  the  Heavenly  pardon  and 
"guidance  to  better  things." 

The  statements  in  Cardan's  treatise  which  relate  to  the 
amber  so  closely  follow  those  on  the  same  subject  in  the 
famous  work  of  George  Agricola,2  which  appeared  a  few 
years  earlier,  that  the  discoveries  recorded  which  are  Car- 
dan's own  are  easily  distinguished.  Agricola's  summary 
of  the  uses  and  properties  of  amber  contains  probably  all 
that  was  then  known  concerning  it.  It  was  utilized  in  the 

'Often  paraphrased  since:  e.  g.,  "Science  is  anything  we  do  not  un- 
derstand :  the  moment  we  understand  it,  it  ceases  to  be  science." 
2  Agricola:  De  la  Natura  de  le  Cose  Fossili.     Venice,  1544.  lib.  iv. 


248         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

manufacture  of  printing-ink  and  of  incense;  when  burned 
it  was  supposed  to  be  a  sure  preventive  of  plague — and  as 
that  terrible  scourge  then  ravaged  Europe  almost  un- 
checked, the  demand  for  the  resin  was  great.  It  was 
carved  into  rings,  beads  for  rosaries,  and  statuettes.  But, 
next  to  its  employment  for  fumigation,  its  most  extensive 
use  was  as  a  specific  for  checking  hemorrhage,  nausea  and 
catarrh.  Thus  it  found  its  way  chiefly  into  the  hands  of 
the  physicians,  and  thus  it  doubtless  came  to  pass  that  to 
the  members  of  the  faculty  were  owing  the  remarkable 
discoveries  which  had  their  basis  in  its  attractive  property. 

Agricola,  however,  perceives  no  difference  between  its 
attraction  and  that  of  the  magnet.  He  enumerates  down, 
chaff,  hairs,  leaves  and  other  small  things — including  even 
metal  filings — as  drawn  to  it,  the  last  probably  fortifying 
him  in  his  individual  belief  in  the  similarity  between  it 
and  the  lodestone.  Yet  he  notes  that,  when  rubbed  even 
with  the  finger,  it  becomes  hot,  and  still  hotter  when  the 
friction  is  applied  with  a  coarse  cloth,  or  even  with  a  hard 
substance;  but  one's  faith  in  his  accuracy  is  somewhat 
rudely  shaken  by  his  culminating  assertion  that  there  is 
found  on  the  shores  of  the  Vistula  a  grey  amber  which, 
on  being  rubbed  with  iron,  will  cause  leaves  lying  on  the 
ground  to  fly  up  to  it,  even  if  held  a  distance  of  two  feet 
above  them. 

Cardan  transcribes,  almost  literally,  Agricola's  list  of 
things  which  the  amber  will  attract,  and  then,  for  the  first 
time,  offers  an  interpretation  purely  physical.  He  specu- 
lates neither  upon  similitudes,  sympathies  or  analogous 
principles,  but  boldly  assigns  a  wholly  material  cause; 
namely,  "that  it  has  a  fatty  and  glutinous  humor  which, 
being  emitted,  the  dry  object  desiring  to  absorb  it  is 
moved  toward  the  source,  that  is  the  amber.  For  every 
dry  thing,  as  soon  as  it  begins  to  absorb  moisture,  is 
moved  toward  the  moist  source,  like  fire  to  its  pasture; 
and  since  the  amber  is  strongly  rubbed,  it  draws  the  more 
because  of  its  heat."  It  is  not  necessary  to  criticise  this 


THE  AMBER  EFFECT  DISTINGUISHED.  249 

theory,  which  was  certainly  as  reasonable  as  any  advanced 
either  before  or  for  the  next  hundred  years.  Its  im- 
portance lies  in  the  fact  that,  good  or  bad,  it  was  the  first 
hypothesis  ever  advanced  to  account  for  the  phenomenon 
of  the  amber  in  contradistinction  to  and  as  different  from 
that  of  the  lodestone.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  its  author's 
meaning,  for  immediately  succeeding  the  theoretical  state- 
ment, comes  the  making  of  the  actual  contrast  in  a  pass- 
age of  extreme  historical  importance,  beginning  with  the 
unqualified  assertion  that  "the  magnet  stone  and  the 
amber  do  not  attract  in  the  same  way" — and  thus  squarely 
denying  the  assertions  of  all  the  philosophers  of  the  past, 
and  his  medical  brother  of  Verona  in  particular.  Observe 
the  reasons : 

"The  amber  draws  everything  that  is  light;  the  magnet, 
iron  only."  He  then  had  not  been  misled  by  the  amber's 
attraction  for  finely-pulverized  iron. 

"The  amber  does  not  move  chaff  when  something  is 
interposed:  the  magnet  nevertheless  will  attract  iron." 
An  age  had  gone  by  since  St.  Augustine  had  recorded  the 
last.  It  was  to  a  rejuvenated  world  that  Cardan  thus 
brought  the  first  suggestion  of  electrical  insulation. 

"The  amber  is  not  mutually  attracted  by  the  chaff: 
the  magnet  is  drawn  by  the  iron."  This  was  intended  as 
a  blow  at  Fracastorio,  and  his  notion  of  analogous  princi- 
ples. Here  one  wishes  that  the  details  of  his  experiment 
had  been  given,  even  as  Porta  would  have  recorded  them. 

"  The  amber  does  not  attract  at  the  end:  the  magnet 
attracts  the  iron  sometimes  at  the  North  and  sometimes  at 
the  South."  It  is  with  the  permanent  polarity  of  the 
magnet  that  the  distinction  is  here  drawn. 

"The  attraction  of  the  amber  is  greatly  aided  by  heat 
and  friction :  that  of  the  magnet,  by  cleaning  the  attract- 
ing part."  The  important  point  here  lies  in  the  implica- 
tion that,  while  the  amber  effect  can  be  augmented  by 
heat  and  friction,  that  of  the  magnet  can  not.  The  clean- 
ing of  the  magnet  to  which  he  alludes  is  probably  the 


250          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

removal  of  foreign  matters  or  a  scale,  of  which  he  else- 
where speaks,  attached  to  the  natural  lodestone,  which  he 
supposed  impaired  its  force.  He  knew  that  the  power 
could  not  thus  be  cut  off. 

This  having  been  said  in  the  sixteenth  century  and  not 
in  the  nineteenth,  the  necessity  obtruded  itself  of  reconcil- 
ing his  plainly  experimental  results  with  his  previously- 
announced  theory.  He  sees  that  the  link  must  be  a  physical 
and  not  a  metaphysical  one.  Instinctively  the  leech  finds 
his  analogy  in  an  instrument  of  torture  still  lingering  in 
the  chirurgical  armament.  The  hotter  the  amber,  he 
thinks,  the  more  it  draws — just  like  the  action  of  "the 
cupping  glass  due  to  fire  and  hot  things;"  and  there  he 
rests  content,  oblivious  of  the  hopeless  inconsistency  of 
this  notion  with  that  part  of  his  theory  which  accounts 
for  the  phenomenon  by  the  attraction  between  dry  and 
moist  bodies.  The  cupping-glass  idea  was  his  own — the 
rest  of  the  analogy  he  borrowed  from  the  ancients. 

That  Sarpi  knew  of  this  remarkable  differentiation  of 
magnet  and  amber,  is  hardly  to  be  doubted ;  and  it  may 
be  surmised  that  his  master  mind  perceived  the  conse- 
quences, which  others  pointed  out.  But  there  is  nothing 
in  Porta's  reflection  of  Sarpi's  light  to  support  this ;  and 
the  loss  of  Sarpi's  writings  leaves  the  matter  probably 
forever  in  obscurity.  Porta  himself  seems  to  have  attached 
no  importance  to  the  subject,  although  he  shows  abundant 
familiarity  with  Cardan's  work.  Indeed,  at  times  he  fairly 
revels  in  disputing  the  assertions  of  the  Milanese  physician, 
in  terms  so  much  more  vigorous  than  refined,  that  it  is 
not  difficult  to  imagine  that  the  Neapolitan  philosopher 
had  imbibed  his  notions  of  Cardan  from  those  life-long 
rivals  who  had  furnished  the  older  scholar  abundant  basis 
for  his  epigrammatic  definition  of  envy  as  "mild  hate." 

Cardan,  for  example,  avers  that  iron  is  the  magnet's 
food  ;  so  not  only  accounts  for  magnetic  attraction,  but  in- 
sists that  a  magnet  is  best  preserved  in  iron  filings  :  which 
may  be  perfectly  true  if  the  filings  are  packed  in  a  dense 


A   REVIEW.  251 

mass  to  form  an  armature  or  keeper.  Porta,  however,  as 
has  been  recounted  in  the  last  chapter,  retorted  by  bury- 
ing a  magnet  with  iron  filings  and  occasionally  digging  it 
up  to  see  how  much  of  the  latter  the  magnet  had  de- 
voured :  a  literal  interpretation  of  Cardan's  directions, 
which,  it  is  needless  to  add,  was  not  attended  with  results. 
On  the  other  hand,  Porta  cordially  agrees  with  Cardan, 
that  the  virtue  of  the  magnet  cannot  be  destroyed  by  gar- 
lic nor  by  the  presence  of  the  diamond. 


I  have  now  reached  the  end  of  that  epoch  which  im- 
mediately precedes  the  earliest  attempt  to  systemize  elec- 
trical and  magnetic  knowledge  and  thus  to  reduce  it  to  a 
science.  In  the  rise  of  that  knowledge  through  the  cen- 
turies we  have  seen  the  conception  of  the  soul  animating 
the  amber  and  the  magnet  give  place  to  more  material 
hypotheses — indeed  to  many  of  them  in  turn — and  ulti- 
mately become  degraded  to  a  mere  physical  emanation  or 
to  an  appetite.  We  have  found  the  phenomenon  of  mag- 
netic attraction,  familiar  for  centuries  to  the  western 
world,  and  that  of  magnetic  polarity  known  for  as  long  a 
period  to  the  nations  of  the  east,  and  yet  that  there  was 
practically  no  interchange  of  this  knowledge.  In  time, 
however,  we  have  seen  this  interchange  take  place,  and 
in  tracing  the  separate  items  to  their  coalescence,  we  have 
at  the  same  time  followed  the  evolution  of  the  first  great 
electrical  invention — the  mariner's  compass. 

We  have  seen  the  enormous  advance  in  human  progress 
directly  owing  to  this  instrument.  We  have  perceived 
that,  although  the  amber  phenomenon  found  no  practical 
application  to  the  uses  of  man,  still  the  inherent  mystery, 
the  unexplained  nature  of  it,  was  sufficient  to  impart  to  it 
all  the  vitality  inherent  to  a  problem  which  constantly  and 
automatically  forces  itself  upon  generation  after  generation 
for  solution.  After  the  compass  had  begun  its  great  work, 
after  it  had  revealed  the  New  World  to  the  Old,  the  alii- 


252          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

ance,  in  the  general  mind,  of  the  amber  to  the  magnet 
ended  forever  the  possibility  of  the  questions  concerning 
the  nature  of  either  sinking  into  oblivion.  But  the  modes 
of  dealing  with  these  questions  we  have  found  to  change 
with  the  changing  times. 

The  tendency  to  speculate  and  to  account  for  facts  by 
theories,  which  seems  implanted  in  the  race,  slowly,  very 
slowly,  even  in  the  individual  under  the  discipline  of  edu- 
cation, loses  its  energy.  So,  in  those  old  days,  it  was  only 
as  men  began  to  question  Nature,  and  not  their  own 
brains,  that  they  began  to  perceive  the  conditions  which 
Nature  had  actually  imposed  on  them,  and  to  recognize 
the  difference  between  these  and  the  imaginary  conditions 
which  their  speculations  had  sought  to  impose  upon 
Nature.  Gradually  the  new  logic  of  experimental  demon- 
stration gathered  momentum,  the  phenomena  of  magnetic 
polarity  and  of  induction  became  recognized,  and  so  came 
about  the  first  crude  conception  of  the  magnetic  field  of 
force.  A  more  exact  knowledge  of  the  magnet  led  in- 
evitably to  the  perception  of  the  differences  between  the 
effects  produced  by  the  lodestone  and  by  the  rubbed 
amber;  and  at  last  to  the  drawing  of  a  clear  line  of  de- 
marcation between  them. 

And  then  the  Sphinx  of  the  centuries  follows  the  flies 
and  the  reptiles  into  the  golden  recesses  of  the  amber,  and 
there  enthroned  poses  once  more  the  nature  of  the  amber 
soul  as  a  newT  riddle.  There  is  no  kinship  between  this 
evanescent  energy  drawn  from  these  yellow  depths  and 
the  stolid  pull  of  the  dull  stone — no  similarity  between 
the  wayward  and  mastering  spirit  which  seizes  upon  any- 
thing within  its  strength  and  the  unrelenting  tyranny 
with  which  the  magnet  enforces  servitude  only  upon  the 
stubborn  iron.  What  then  is  this  genius  which  is  called 
forth  by  the  friction  of  the  amber,  even  as  the  Afrite  was 
summoned  by  the  rubbing  of  Aladdin's  lamp?  Thus  the 
question  first  asked  twenty-two  hundred  years  before  was 
renewed  :  and  now  impressed  with  greater  urgency  than 
ever  upon  the  newly-awakened  human  intellect. 


THE   PHYSICIANS  AS  DISCOVERERS.  253 

During  this  great  period  the  attraction  of  magnet  and 
amber  had  been  dealt  with,  first  by  the  philosophers,  then 
by  the  priests,  now  by  the  physicians.  To  the  theo- 
logians of  the  last  three  centuries  of  this  era,  the  subject 
is  a  favorite  mine  of  metaphor  from  which  saints  and 
popes  have  not  disdained  to  draw.  The  metallurgists, 
headed  by  Agricola,  make  both  the  stone  and  the  resin 
the  subject  of  their  didactic  description;  and,  contrariwise, 
the  mystics  and  magicians  heap  upon  the  already-existing 
mystery  of  it,  new  and  endless  mysteries  of  their  own 
devising.  Only  occasionally  does  a  master  mind,  dominat- 
ing all  known  sciences,  like  that  of  Sarpi,  or  some  keen 
student  of  nature  ahead  of  his  times,  as  Robert  Norman, 
achieve  genuine  progress. 

A  review  of  all  that  has  been  handed  down  to  us  makes 
it  clear  that  to  the  members  of  the  medical  profession 
more  than  to  those  of  any  other,  is  due  the  impetus  which, 
at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  brought  the  world  to 
the  point  where  the  next  step  beyond  meant  the  incoming 
of  electricity  as  a  new  science.  Yet  it  may  well  be 
doubted  whether  the  work  of  searching  out  and  establish- 
ing it  could  have  fallen  into  hands  less  adapted  thereto 
by  past  training.  Medicine  is  an  inexact  science.  In 
no  field  of  human  endeavor  has  the  imagination  been 
more  severely  taxed  to  frame  hypotheses  to  accord  with  or 
account  for  seemingly  endless  adventitious  phenomena. 
"Medicine,"  says  Bacon,1  speaking  of  it  as  it  existed  in 
his  time,  u  is  a  science  which  hath  been  more  professed 
than  labored,  and  yet  more  labored  than  advanced  ;  the 
labor  having  been,  in  my  judgment,  rather  in  circle  than 
in  progressing.  For  I  find  much  iteration,  but  small 
addition."  And  as  to  its  practitioners,  he  says,  "in  the 
inquiry  of  diseases  they  do  abandon  the  cures  of  many, 
some  as  in  their  nature  incurable  and  others  as  past  the 
period  of  cure ;  so  that  Sylla  and  the  Triumvirs  never 
proscribed  so  many  men  to  die,  as  they  do  by  their 

:  De  Augmeutis,  ii.,  x,  3. 


254         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

ignorant  edicts :  whereof  numbers  do  escape  with  less 
difficulty  than  they  did  in  the  Roman  proscriptions."1 
Yet  the  reproach  brought  against  the  Asclepiades  that 
they  "resigned  themselves  to  visionary  speculations,  and 
obeyed  the  instincts  of  their  understandings  rather  in 
crude  meditations  on  the  essence  of  things,  the  origin  of 
the  world,  the  nature  of  God  and  the  soul  of  man,  than  in 
developing  a  practical  and  useful  system  of  medicine"2 
often  repeated  against  the  mediaeval  physicians,  has  little 
justice  in  it.  Like  all  knowledge  depending  upon  phys- 
ical investigation,  that  of  the  human  body  lay  under  the 
ban  of  ecclesiastical  control.  Ceremonies  and  relics  and 
consecrated  specifics,  amulets,  miracle-working  images,  and 
a  celestial  faculty  recruited  from  the  ranks  of  the  saints — 
such  were  the  means  too  often  relied  upon  to  meet  the 
fearful  diseases  which  flourished  under  conditions  which 
favored  every  form  of  contagion  and  infection.  "Afflictions 
sent  by  Providence"  and  "demoniac  possessions"  were 
terms  which  readily  veiled  the  density  of  the  existing 
ignorance.  Man,  it  was  insisted,  must  not  investigate  the 
structure  of  his  own  frame  with  the  scalpel,  since  this 
argued  contempt  for  the  doctrine  of  final  resurrection. 
Medical  practice  must  be  first  of  all  orthodox.  Supernat- 
uralism  must  prevail,  and  the  struggling  lunatic  dealt  with 
through  book  and  holy  water,  rather  than  through  reme- 
dies ministering  to  the  mind  diseased.  Progress  in  any 
department  of  the  healing  art  could  hardly  be  expected 
in  such  circumstances. 

Hence,  while  extended  allusion  to  the  therapeutic  em- 
ployment of  both  the  magnet  and  the  amber  in  the  Middle 
Ages  has  been  made  in  the  preceding  pages,  it  would  be 
incorrect  to  infer  that  the  advancement  of  magnetic  or 
electrical  knowledge  was  materially  accelerated  by  such 
use.  In  fact,  so  long  as  the  principal  value  of  the  lode- 
stone  lay  in  its  utility  as  "a  means  of  expelling  gross 

1  Bacon  :  De  Augmentis,  ii.,  x,  5. 

2Meryon  :  The  History  of  Medicine,  London,  1861. 


THE   PHYSICIANS  AS  DISCOVERERS.  255 

humors,"  as  Dioscorides  and  Galen  averred,  the  world 
was  none  the  better  for  the  attention  bestowed  upon  it  by 
these  fathers  in  medicine.  It  was  when  the  physicians 
ceased  to  deal  with  it,  however,  as  physicians,  and  began 
to  deal  with  it  as  physicists,  that  real  advances  began.  It 
was  the  leaven  of  the  inductive  method  of  Hippocrates 
which  worked  for  good  in  them — Hippocrates,  who  had 
asserted  demoniac  possession  to  be  uno  wise  more  divine, 
no  wise  more  infernal,  than  any  other  disease,"  and  the 
sturdy  common  sense  of  whose  precepts  had  refused  to  be 
destroyed  by  the  magic  of  the  Persians,  or  the  dreams  of 
the  Asclepiades,  or  the  numbers  of  Pythagoras,  or  the 
atoms  of  Democritus,  and  which  even  asserted  itself  free 
of  the  entangling  meshes  of  the  Aristotelian  Matter  and 
Form. 

The  priests  of  Samothrace  sold  magnet  rings  to  cure 
rheumatism  and  gout.  A  thousand  years  later  the  fact 
was  so  far  forgotten  that  when  Aetius,  in  the  fifth  century, 
compiled  all  the  medical  knowledge  of  his  predecessors, 
and  announced  that  "  those  who  are  afflicted  with  gout  in 
their  hands  or  feet  or  with  convulsions  are  relieved  by 
holding  a  magnet  in  their  hands,"  the  discovery  was  re- 
garded as  wholly  new,  despite  the  writer's  cautious  prefix 
of  "they  say"  to  his  asseverations.  How  the  magnet  in 
the  hands  'of  the  arch  impostor  Paracelsus  became  the 
foundation  of  speculations  as  wild  and  as  fantastic  as  ever 
man  conceived,  has  already  been  told,  and  some  reference 
has  been  made  to  the  vagaries  of  Raymond  Lully  con- 
cerning it.  The  knowledge  of  the  embryo  science  did 
not  advance  because  of  the  visionary  theories  of  these 
people,  but  despite  of  them — just  as  it  grew  in  the  works 
of  Cardan  and  Porta,  where  the  statements  of  great  dis- 
coveries in  it  are  jostled  by  the  descriptions  of  alleged 
phenomena  as  false  and  as  absurd  as  anything  which  the 
veriest  charlatan  could  devise. 

Nevertheless  it  is  to  be  remembered,  that  there  was  hardly 
a  medical  writer  of  any  eminence,  from  the  time  of  Ori- 


256         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

basius  onward,  who  did  not  refer  to  the  magnet  in  some 
/  way — often  writing  utter  nonsense  about  it,  sometimes  in- 
terspersing his  rumors  and  vagaries  with  truths  frequently 
the  more  forceful  for  the  re-telling  in  a  new  manner.  If 
in  a  multitude  of  counselors  there  is  wisdom,  if  the  truth 
resides  in  numbers  of  witnesses,  surely  we  may  ascribe 
some  of  the  progress  effected  to  the  mutual  cancellation  of 
the  mistakes  and  misstatements  repeated  and  reiterated  in 
the  works  of  the  old  medical  writers.  The  subject  was 
sifted  through  the  books  of  the  Arabs  and  by  their  great- 
est leeches,  Hali  Abbas,  Avicenna  and  Serapion  the  Moor; 
while  in  Europe,  in  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
physicians  of  commanding  eminence  hasten  to  contribute 
their  observations  or  speculations  concerning  it,  to  the 
general  fund  of  knowledge.  Kernel  and  Dupuis  in  France, 
Amatus  in  Portugal,  Thomas  Lieber  (or  Krastus)  in  Ger- 
many, Fallopius,  Fracastorio,  Costaeus  and  Cardan  in 
Italy — such  were  the  men  who,  with  an  abundant  crop 
of  tares,  cultivated  the  harvest  which,  meagre  as  it  was, 
increased  a  thousandfold  within  the  next  hundred  years. 

At  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century,  the  Italians  were 
far  in  advance  of  all  other  nations  in  their  medical  attain- 
ments, and  the  English  well  in  the  rear.  I  have  encoun- 
tered no  writings  by  English  physicians  of  that  century 
which  entitle  them  to  any  credit  for  either  preserving  or 
advancing  electrical  or  magnetic  knowledge.  The  prac- 
tice of  physic  did  not  pass  from  the  active  control  of  the 
priesthood  and  become  an  independent  profession  in  Brit- 
ain until  Henry  VIIL,  in  1518,  granted  its  charter  to  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians  in  London.  The  names  of  Dr, 
Linacre  and  Dr.  Kaye  (Shakespeare's  Dr.  Caius)  then  come 
into  prominence,  but  chiefly  as  leaders  in  the  struggle  of 
the  college  to  put  down  quackery,  and  to  impose  qualifica- 
tions upon  the  medical  practitioner,  to  maintain  itself 
against  the  pretensions  of  the  clergy,  who  still  arrogated 
to  themselves  the  right  to  license,  and  to  assert  its  own 
privileges  and  dignity. 


THE   PHYSICIANS   AS   DISCOVERERS.  257 

If  it  had  been  known  that  the  reduction  of  the  elec^ 
trical  and  magnetic  knowledge  of  the  time  to  a  science, 
coupled  moreover  with  new  discoveries  of  extreme  im- 
portance and  brilliancy,  was  predestined  to  come  from  a 
medical  faculty,  common  consent,  as  well  as  the  evidence 
to  be  derived  from  all  written  records,  would  infallibly 
have  pointed  to  that  existing  in  Italy;  perhaps  in  Milan 
or  Padua  or  Bologna.  But  no  one  could  have  foreseen 
that  so  startling  an  event  could  have  originated  in  Eng- 
land, could  have  been  the  unaided  work  of  an  English  doc- 
tor; and,  perhaps  least  of  all,  of  the  particular  physician 
who,  at  the  time  of  its  appearance,  presided  over  the  des- 
tinies and  troubles  of  the  much-vexed  and  hard-fighting 
college  in  London. 

The  rise  in  electricity  had  slowly  taken  place  throughout 
all  Europe,  indeed,  all  the  world,  and  therein  many  na- 
tionalities had  taken  part.  It  was  now  destined  to  move 
with  a  new  and  marvelous  vigor,  through  the  transcend- 
ent genius  of  an  Englishman  and  on  English  soil. 


CHAPTER    X. 

WILLIAM  GILBERD  (or  Gilbert,  as  the  name  is  more 
commonly  written)  was  born  in  the  year  1540,  in  Holy 
Trinity  Parish  in  the  town  of  Colchester,  England.1  He 
came  of  excellent  family,  and  was  the  eldest  of  the  five 
sons  of  Jerome  Gilbert,  at  one  time  town  recorder.  Of  his 
individual  history  there  is  but  scant  record.  He  was  a 
physician,  but  the  great  work  which  has  insured  his  im- 
mortality has  no  necessary  relation  to  the  healing  art.  No 
important  discovery  in  medicine  is  known  to  be  his,  and 
he  appears  therein  only  as  a  teacher  and  an  expounder. 
And  this  is  the  more  remarkable,  since,  in  dealing  with  a 
different  branch  of  science,  he  displays  not  only  a  marvel- 
ous originality  of  thought,  but  intolerance  of  accepted 
opinion  to  a  degree  which  ordinarily  leads  most  men  to 
revolutionary  extremes  in  any  field  of  action  in  which  they 
may  be  placed. 

Something  of  the  difficulty  which  is  encountered  in  re- 
conciling the  dual  intellectual  lives  of  Shakespeare  the 
poet  and  Shakespeare  the  player,  of  Bacon  the  philosopher 
and  Bacon  the  advocate,  is  again  met  when  those  of  Gil- 
bert the  physician  and  Gilbert  the  discoverer  are  con- 
trasted. We  find,  on  the  one  hand,  the  hard-working 
London  doctor,  renouncing  matrimony  through  simple  de- 
votion to  his  art,  and  year  in  and  year  out  teaching  a  little 
band  of  students  at  his  house  hard  by  St.  Paul's,  until  the 

Cooper:  Athenae  Cantabrigiensis,  Cambridge,  1858.  This  contains  a 
very  full  list  of  works  in  which  reference  to  Gilbert  is  made.  Of  the 
older  biographies  of  him,  that  which  is  especially  full  appears  in  Bio- 
graphica  Britannia,  London,  1757.  Among  later  memoirs  may  be  noted 
one  by  Prof.  S.  P.  Thompson,  London,  1891,  and  another  by  Mr.  Con- 
rad W.  Cooke,  London,  1890. 

(258) 


WILLIAM  GILBERT.  259 

queen  called  him  into  her  service;  on  the  other,  a  philoso- 
pher of  overshadowing  genius  pursuing,  despite  his  ar- 
duous professional  labor,  and  in  the  very  teeth  of  the  fixed 
beliefs  of  the  world  of  his  time,  the  first  researches  seeking 
to  establish  physical  science  on  a  philosophic  basis,  and 
which  revealed  and  co-ordinated  the  amber-electricity  as  a 
new  and  distinct  phenomenon  of  nature. 

The  archives  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  of  the 
Royal  College  of  Physicians,  and  the  meagre  statements 
of  his  epitaph  high  up  on  the  church  wall  in  his  native 
town,  tell  us  the  official  honors  which  Gilbert  won.  But 
scores  of  other  good  and  useful  men  whose  fame  never 
traveled  beyond  their  birthplaces,  who  adopted  liberal 
professions,  rose  in  them,  secured  their  rewards  and  de- 
parted, have  left  records  equally  respectable.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  writings  of  his  time  which  reveals  to  us 
any  clear  view  of  other  manifestations  of  the  living  force 
which  drove  Gilbert  to  the  accomplishment  of  the  great 
task  so  controlling,  so  novel,  and  yet  so  foreign  to  his 
daily  round  of  toil.  True,  it  was  not  uncommon,  in  those 
days,  for  the  physician  to  follow  some  other  art  or  practice 
more  to  his  fancy  than  his  calling.  "For  you  shall  have 
of  them, "  records  the  great  Chancellor  caustically,1  "anti- 
quaries, poets,  humanists,  statesmen,  merchants,  divines, 
and  in  every  of  these  better  seen  than  in  their  profession ; 
and  no  doubt  upon  this  ground,  that  they  find  that  medi- 
ocrity and  excellency  in  their  art  maketh  no  difference  in 
profit  or  reputation  towards  their  fortune;  for  the  weak- 
ness of  patients,  and  sweetness  of  life,  and  nature  of  hope, 
maketh  men  depend  upon  physicians  with  all  their  de- 
fects." But  the  official  honors  which  Gilbert  received 
included  all  which  his  profession  could  give;  and,  as  none 
of  the  foregoing  influences,  however  much  they  might 
have  conduced  to  his  material  support,  imply  the  Presi- 
dency of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians,  and  the  ex 
officio  status  of  professional  primacy,  it  may  safely  be  con- 

1  Bacon:  Advt.  of  Learning,  b.  ii.,  c.  x.,  2. 


26o         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

eluded  that,  despite  his  great  work  in  another  art,  he  was 
none  the  less  a  good  and  skilful  doctor,  who  rose  to  high 
places  because  he  deserved  them. 

So  the  memorials  of  him  fail.  We  can  only  read  be- 
tween the  lines  of  his  book  and  draw  inferences,  and  per- 
haps measure  his  thought-power  by  noting  its  effect  upon 
the  thought  inertia  of  his  contemporaries :  we  can  quote 
what  this  or  that  philosopher  said  about  him,  which  is  no 
safe  criterion,  for  where  is  there  less  toleration  of  truths 
of  to-day  than  in  minds  filled  to  saturation  with  the  truths 
of  yesterday?  But  no  Boswell  attended  his  steps,  and  no 
relics  have  been  found  of  that  voluminous  correspondence 
which  he  is  said  to  have  opened  with  the  learned  men  of 
Italy.  One  portrait1  of  him  which  hung  in  the  house  of 
the  Royal  College  of  Physicians  was  destroyed  in  the 
Great  Fire  of  1666,  and  another  which  he  bequeathed  to 
the  Bodleian  Library  became  decayed,  was  removed,  and 
disappeared  unaccountably  during  the  last  century.  The 
sole  vestiges  of  him  are  a  few  scraps  of  doubtful  hand- 
writing, and  the  old  house  in  Colchester  where  he  once  re- 
sided. His  fame  rests  upon  the  contents  of  two  ancient  and 
yellow-paged  volumes,2  one  of  which  Peter  Short  printed 
for  him  nearly  three  hundred  years  ago;  the  other3  his 
surviving  brother  lovingly  collected  from  his  scattered 
papers,  and  it  lay  in  manuscript  for  half  a  century  after 
his  death. 

In  the  dark  days  of  Queen  Mary,  the  town  of  Colches- 
ter, famous  then  and  since  for  its  oysters  and  Dutch 
weavers — being  a  "  sweet  and  comfortable  mother  of  the 
bodies  and  a  tender  nourse  of  the  souls  of  God's  chil- 
dren"4— the  latter,  so  styling  themselves,  much  affected 
the  common  inns  as  their  meeting  places.  Consequently 
Protestantism  flourished  sturdily,  until  the  Smithfield 

1  Evelyn's  Diary,  Oct.  3,  1662. 

2  De  Magnate.     London,  1600. 

3De  Mundo  Novo  Sublunari,  Philosophia  Nova.     Amsterdam,  1561. 
*P.  Morant:  The  History  and  Antiquities  of  Colchester.    London,  1748. 


WILLIAM  GILBERT.  261 

fires  spread  thither  and  burned  it  out.  There  was  not 
much  in  the  atmosphere  of  a  place  where  half  a  dozen 
rank  Gospellers  went  to  the  stake  of  a  morning  and  as 
many  more  in  the  afternoon,  to  encourage  free  thought  in 
a  boy  even  of  Gilbert's  mental  strength;  nor  was  eight 
hours'  work  a  day  over  the  Sententise  Pueriles,  or  the 
Accidence  (which  Mr.  Robert  Wrennald,  in  consideration 
of  six  pounds,  thirteen  shillings  and  four  pence  annually 
paid  him,  taught  in  the  school  which  King  Henry  VIII. 
had  founded)1  especially  calculated  to  expand  the  faculty 
of  original  ideation  in  any  one. 

At  the  age  of  eighteen,  Gilbert  matriculated  at  St. 
John's  College,  Cambridge.  The  condition  of  the  Uni- 
versity, then  and  for  several  years  afterwards,  was  any- 
thing but  one  likely  to  promote  the  scholarship  or  foster 
the  natural  abilities  of  its  students.  It  had  fallen  far  be- 
low the  high  standards  of  Ascham  and  Cheke;  it  was 
destitute  of  leaders  capable  of  stimulating  others  by  their 
example  to  honorable  exertion;  its  undergraduates  were 
disorderly,  insubordinate  and  even  riotous,  addicted  to 
gaudy  clothes,  the  taverns  and  the  gambling  houses, 
while  religious  dissensions  ran  high  between  the  sympa- 
thizers with  Rome  and  the  adherents  of  the  new  Puritan- 
ism which  had  found  lodgment  chiefly  in  the  colleges  of 
Trinity  and  St.  John's.  Whatever  Cambridge  then 
achieved  in  advancing  real  knowledge  was  the  outcome 
of  individual  genius  rising  superior  to  the  prevalent  in- 
fluences of  the  culture  which  surrounded  it.  To  science 
and  its  votaries,  the  great  University  then  offered  no  per- 
manent home.2 

Gilbert's  progress  was  unremittingly  upward.  He  at- 
tained his  bachelor's  degree  in  1560,  became  a  Fellow  on 
Symson's  Foundation  in  1561,  ''commenced"  M.  A.,  in 
1564,  and  during  the  two  years  following,  was  mathematical 

1  P.  Morant :  The  History  and  Antiquities  of  Colchester.  London,  1748. 

2  The  University  of  Cambridge :  Mullinger.     Cambridge,   1884.  v.  ii., 
pp.  100,  573,  574. 


262          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

examiner  of  his  college.  Then  he  studied  medicine  and 
reached  his  Doctorate  and  a  senior  Fellowship  in  1569, 
when  he  terminated  his  eleven  years'  connection  with  the 
University. 

The  facilities  for  studying  anatomy  and  clinical  medi- 
cine in  England,  at  that  time,  were  not  comparable  with 
those  to  be  obtained  on  the  Continent.  Vesalius,  of  the 
University  of  Padua,  had  written,  not  long  before,  his 
famous  work  based  upon  actual  dissections  of  the  human 
body,  and  pointing  out  the  errors  into  which  Galen  had 
fallen  through  studies  said  to  have  been  made  upon  the 
organs  of  apes.  Eustachius,  then  living,  was  continuing 
the  work  of  his  greater  contemporary  upon  the  founda- 
tions of  the  science  of  anatomy.  The  discoveries  of  Fallo- 
pius  were  still  new  and  arousing  the  keenest  interest. 
Cardan  was  teaching  in  Bologna.  The  chemical  medicine 
of  Paracelsus  was  creating  widespread  controversy.  For  a 
student  such  as  Gilbert,  whose  turn  of  mind  was  of  the 
most  practical  nature  and  who  possessed  a  keen  taste  for 
experimental  research,  the  opportunities  for  such  study 
available  outside  of  England  furnish  abundant  reason  for 
his  sojourn  of  four  years  abroad,  and  make  it  needless  to 
picture  him  as  simply  making  u  the  grand  tour"  which, 
in  those  days,  formed  a  part  of  the  educational  course  of 
well-to-do  people. 

Although  the  habits  and  mode  of  thought  acquired  dur- 
ing his  period  of  study  in  the  foreign  universities  had 
much  to  do  with  the  development  of  his  later  achieve- 
ments, Gilbert  was  no  one's  disciple.  No  one  even  played 
for  him  the  part  of  a  Southampton  or  an  Essex,  unless 
sub  silentio  the  Queen  herself.  Even  the  dedication  to  the 
young  Prince  of  Wales,  who  never  wore  the  crown,  which 
prefaces  his  posthumous  volume,  was  penned  by  his 
brother,  and  not  by  himself.  Nor  is  any  especial  influ- 
ence recognizable  which  can  be  said  to  have  aroused  in 
him  a  spirit  of  emulation  and  so  to  have  directed  him  into 
his  chosen  path  of  discovery.  Galen  and  Dioscorides,  in 


WILLIAM  GILBERT.  263 

fact  all  of  the  ancient  writers,  treated  of  the  lodestone  as 
a  part  of  the  materia  medica ;  the  more  modern  authors 
dwelt  much  also  upon  its  occult  powers,  and  Paracelsus 
had  rejuvenated  but  recently  the  superstitions  of  the  old 
Greeks  and  had  opened  the  Pandora's  box  of  delusions  and 
deceptions  concerning  it,  which  have  plagued  the  world 
ever  since.  Gilbert,  while  showing  abundant  familiarity 
with  these  and  other  authorities  on  the  medical  uses  of  the 
magnet,  disposes  of  their  labored  speculations  with  scant 
respect  and  few  words.  Therapeutically  he  thinks  the 
stone  has  some  uses,  not  however  dependent  upon  its  mag- 
netic quality.  As  for  Paracelsus,  he  observes  that  head- 
aches can  no  more  be  cured  by  a  lodestone  applied  than 
by  a  steel  hat,  and  he  singles  out  the  apostle  of  laudanum 
and  mercury  for  especial  scorn.  That  he  owed  nothing  to 
the  accumulated  magnetic  wisdom  of  his  professional  an- 
cestors— saving  perhaps  the  knowledge  of  a  host  of  errors 
to  be  avoided — is  clear.  His  greatest  debt,  as  I  shall  show 
hereafter,  lay  to  Peregrin  us,  to  Cardan  and  Fracastorio  as 
philosophers  rather  than  as  physicians,  and  to  Sarpi 
through  Baptista  Porta's  transcriptions. 

Gilbert's  medical  reputation  must  have  preceded  him,  for 
upon  his  return  to  England,  he  was  at  once  made  a  Fellow 
of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians.  He  began  practice 
in  London,  and  established  himself  in  a  house  on  uSt. 
Peter's  Hill  between  upper  Thames  Street  and  Little 
Knight  Rider  Street."  As  Dr.  Linacre  is  known1  to  have 
given  a  house  on  Knight  Rider  Street  to  the  college  as  its 
first  abode,  it  may  be  that  Gilbert  took  up  his  residence  in 
the  college  building.  At  all  events,  it  seems  that  he  led 
an  all  but  cloistered  life  and  taught  medicine  at  his  dwell- 
ing to  a  number  of  students.  More  probably,  however, 
this  gathering  was  modeled  on  the  Italian  ridotto,  or  was 
something  after  the  fashion  of  Porta's  suppressed  society, 
the  Otiosi,  having  for  its  object  not  only  didactic  instruc- 
tion, but  free  discussion  and  interchange  of  opinion.  It 

1T.  Allen:  A  New  History  of  London,  1883,  iii.,  573. 


264         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

was  the  first  association  of  its  kind  in  England,  and  the 
precursor  of  the  Royal  Society.1  That  it  was  popular 
among  the  students  is  attested  by  John  Chamberlain,2  who 
lived  with  Gilbert  and  who  speaks  of  "  the  town  as  empty 
as  if  it  were  dead  vacation,  nobody  at  the  Doctor's." 
Later,  when  Gilbert  was  called  to  Whitehall,  Chamberlain 
predicts  the  disbanding  of  the  society,  saying  UI  doubt 
our  college  will  be  dissolved  and  some  of  us  sent  to  seeke 
our  fortune;"  and  still  later,  after  Gilbert's  departure,  "the 
covie  is  now  dispersed,"  he  chronicles  somewhat  ruefully, 
"and  we  are  driven  to  seeke  our  feeding  further  off,  our 
Doctor  being  alredy  setled  in  Court."  Meanwhile  Gilbert 
was  elected  to  the  office  of  Censor  of  the  College  three 
times,  twice  to  that  of  Treasurer,  then  he  became,  in  1597, 
Consilarius  in  place  of  Dr.  Giffard,  and  finally,  in  1600, 
the  same  year  in  which  his  famous  work  appeared,  he 
reached  the  Presidential  Chair. 

In  the  last-named  year  also,  as  Chamberlain  records, 
Queen  Elizabeth  appointed  him  one  of  her  body  physi- 
cians, a  merely  perfunctory  office,  for  she  detested  doctors 
and  would  have  none  of  their  drugs.  Perhaps  her  un- 
lucky experience  with  the  Jew,  Rodrigo  Lopez,  whom  she 
covertly  favored  and  allowed  to  prescribe  for  her,  until  he 
was  detected  trying  to  give  her  poison  (being  thereunto  in- 
cited, so  it  was  said,  by  Spain)  and  duly  convicted,  shat- 
tered her  faith  in  the  medical  profession  :  perhaps,  in  her 
last  years,  she  believed  in  her  own  sarcastic  remark  that 
the  people  would  say  that  the  physicians  killed  her  if  she 
died  of  old  age  after  following  their  counsels  :  perhaps  she 

1  It  is  generally  stated  that  the  organization  of  the  College  of  Philoso- 
phy instituted  in  London  in  1645,  which  immediately  preceded  the  Royal 
Society,  was  due  to  the  scheme  of  Solomon's  House  described  by  Bacon 
in  the  New  Atlantis — and  first  suggested  in  his  Praise  of  Knowledge,  pub- 
lished in  1593.     Gilbert's  society,  however,  appears  to  be  of  still  earlier 
establishment.     It  may  have   been   the   first  medical  "quiz"    class  in 
England. 

2  Letters  written   by  John   Chamberlain    during  the  reign   of  Queen 
Elizabeth.     London,  Camden  Society,  1861,  pp.  88,  102,  103. 


GILBERT  AND  THE  QUEEN.  265 

drew  no  distinction  between  GifFarde,  Caius  and  Caldwell, 
and  the  barber  surgeons  or  the  leeches  turned  loose  upon 
her  people,  through  the  Heaven-sent  discernment  and 
selection  of  his  Grace  of  Canterbury.  At  all  events,  as  is 
well  known,  she  refused  to  take  physic  to  the  last,  and 
grimly  flouted  her  doctors  from  her  pile  of  cushions  as 
long  as  fierce  will  and  frail  body  remained  together ;  and 
then,  with  characteristic  inconsistency,  left  to  one  of 
them — and  that  one,  it  is  said,  Gilbert — the  only  substan- 
tial bequest  whereby  she  remembered  any  of  her  personal 
attendants.  The  chorus  of  execration  which  arose  from 
the  ignored  royal  household  is  historical ;  but  the  great 
work  of  Gilbert  had  then  been  written  and  laid  at  her 
feet.  The  book  itself  was  not  without  a  spice  of  ingenious 
flattery  for  herself,  and  so  it  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  that 
the  Queen  was  willing  to  give  to  him,  in  order  to  carry  on 
labors  whereof  she  saw  the  value,  the  pension  which  she 
was  equally  ready  to  deny  even  to  the  most  sycophantic  of 
her  court  satellites. 

The  laudatory  address  of  Edward  Wright,  the  mathe- 
matician, which  is  prefixed  to  Gilbert's  first  and  chief 
volume,1  wherein  all  his  magnetic  and  electrical  experi- 
ments and  discoveries  are  recorded,  says  that  it  was  held 
back  from  the  press  for  nearly  twice  the  Horatian  period. 
This  places  the  time  of  its  inception  shortly  after  Gilbert 
became  Censor  of  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians — the 
acquirement  of  which  dignity,  and  the  fact  that  he  was 
enabled  to  undertake  a  task  requiring  so  great  an  expend- 
iture of  time  and  labor  in  addition  to  the  duties  imposed 
on  him  by  his  profession,  fairly  indicate  that  in  the  decade 
which  had  elapsed  since  his  settlement  in  England,  he  had 
achieved  no  small  measure  of  success.  The  statement  has 

1  The  title  in  full  is  as  follows  : 

Guilielmi  Gil  /  berti  Colcestren-  /  sis,  medici  londi-  /  nensis,  /  De  Mag- 
nete,  Magneti-  /  cisque  Corporibus,  et  de  Mag-  /  no  magnete  tellure ; 
Physiologia  Nova,  /  Plurimis  et  argumentis,  et  expe  /  rimentis  demon- 
strata.  /  Londini  /  Excudebat  Petrus  Short  Anno  /  MDC.  / 


266         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

been  made  that  his  magnetic  experiments  involved  an 
actual  outlay  of  over  ^5,000  sterling,1  and  Gilbert  him- 
self avers  in  his  preface  that,  in  his  endeavor  to  discover 
the  true  substance  of  the  earth,  he  examined  matters  ob- 
tained from  lofty  mountains,  sea  depths  and  hidden 
mines — from  which  it  may  be  inferred  that  he  had  made  a 
large  collection  of  rare  substances,  which,  in  those  days, 
must  have  involved  great  outlay.  So  also,  in  describing 
one  of  his  experiments,  he  speaks  of  testing  the  supposed 
magnetizing  effect  of  seventy-five  diamonds.  It  is  evi- 
dent, moreover,  that  all  of  his  practical  research  was  made 
with  the  utmost  attention  to  detail,  that  his  tests  were  re- 
peated over  and  over  again,  sometimes  with  very  slight 
variations.  They  form  a  great  multitude  of  experiments 
and  discoveries  dug  up,  he  says,  with  much  pains  and 
sleepless  nights  and  at  great  cost;  and  "all  of  them  done 
again  and  again  under  my  own  eyes." 

It  was  impossible  for. such  an  intellect  as  that  of  Gil- 
bert not  to  draw  comparisons  between  knowledge  based 
on  the  magnificent  discoveries  of  the  Italian  anatomists, 
and  that  founded  on  the  pedantic  re-readings  of  Galen 
about  which  the  English  physicians  ceaselessly  wrangled  ; 
or  between  the  intelligence  which  sought,  at  the  bedside, 
the  best  modes  of  assisting  the  vis  medicatrix  naturtz,  and 
the  quacks,  whom  he  denounces  as  prescribing  gold  and 
emerald  and  practicing  wretched  imposture  for  money. 
To  him  who  has  learned  the  art  of  questioning  nature, 
there  belongs  a  potent  armament  adaptable  to  all  needs. 
The  study  of  the  obscure  functions  of  the  human  organs 
and  that  of  the  equally  obscure  phenomena  of  the  lode- 
stone  involved,  in  both  instances,  "sure  experiments  and 
demonstrated  arguments" — the  same  care  "to  look  for 
knowledge  not  in  books  but  in  things" — and  the  handling 
of  bodies  "carefully,  skillfully  and  deftly."  The  skill 
trained  to  one  task  was  inevitably  trained  in  all  essentials 

1  Fuller:  Worthies  of  England,  16.  Morhof:  Polyhist.  Lit.  Lubeck, 
1732,  Vol.  II.,  3d  ed.,  409- 


THE  COPERNICAN  DOCTRINE.  267 

to  the  other,  and  thus  properly  directed,  the  genius  of 
Gilbert  moved  forward  in  the  path  of  new  discovery, 
perhaps  as  nearly  in  a  right  line  as  any  fallible  human 
effort  can  so  proceed. 

In  1543,  the  year  of  his  death,  Nicolas  Copernicus  ven- 
tured "merely  as  an  hypothesis  for  their  better  explana- 
tion" to  publish  the  cosmical  discoveries  which  he  had 
made  thirty-five  years  earlier.  It  did  not  become  a  Polish 
Catholic  canon  and  prebendary  to  do  more  than  cautiously 
suggest,  even  at  the  eleventh  hour,  a  theory  which  would 
have  been  perilous  to  advance  at  an  earlier  time.  Yet, 
the  hypothesis  of  the  earth's  revolution  about  the  sun  was 
no  new  one.  Among  the  ancient  philosophers  Heraclides 
of  Ponticus,  Ecphantus,  Nicetas  of  Syracuse,  and  chiefly 
Philolaus,  had  all  affirmed  it,  and  it  had  found  its  first 
modern  support  during  the  fifteenth  century  at  the  hands 
of  Cardinal  de  Cusa,  who  asserted,  without  qualification, 
"jam  nobis  manifestum  terram  in  veritate  moveri,"  al- 
though he  offered  no  more  proof  of  the  fact  than  did  his 
predecessors.  Copernicus,  however,  took  "the  liberty  of 
trying  whether  on  the  supposition  of  the  earth's  motion  it 
was  possible  to  find  better  explanations  than  the  ancient 
ones  of  the  revolutions  of  the  celestial  orbs,"  and  con- 
cluded that  "if  the  motions  of  the  other  planets  be  com- 
pared with  the  revolution  of  the  earth,  not  only  their 
phenomena  follow  from  their  suppositions,  but  also  that 
the  several  orbs  and  the  whole  system  are  so  connected  in 
order  and  magnitude  that  no  one  part  can  be  transposed 
without  disturbing  the  rest  and  introducing  confusion  into 
the  universe." 

This  doctrine  was  brought  into  England  by  Giordano 
Bruno  of  Nola,  one  of  the  last  martyrs  of  philosophy, 
whose  statue,  erected  within  late  years,  marks  the  spot  in 
the  Eternal  city  where  his  too  aggressive  wit  was  expiated 
under  the  all-embracing  name  of  heresy.  In  1583,  he  held 
public  disputations  with  Oxford  doctors,  and  subsequently 
formulated  his  metaphysics  in  his  treatises.  From  Bruno 


268         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

it  may  be  presumed  that  Gilbert  imbibed  the  ideas  which 
made  him  not  only  the  first  of  English  Copernicans,  but 
from  his  very  nature  an  active  defender  of  the  new  theory, 
with  the  original  tenets  of  which  he  coupled  his  belief 
that  the  diurnal  rotation,  as  well  as  the  polarity,  of  the 
earth  is  due  to  the  magnetic  nature  or  Form  of  a  so-called 
terrene  matter  of  which  he  regarded  the  globe  as  com- 
posed. 

,  The  ultimate  aim  and  object  of  Gilbert's  work  was 
therefore  to  substantiate  the  doctrine  of  Copernicus  by 
entirely  new  arguments  and  experiments :  and  this  at  a 
time  when  the  opinion  of  the  world — or  what  was  then 
nearly  the  same,  the  opinion  of  the  Church — was  inflexibly 
arrayed  against  it.  To  have  published  such  a  theory  in 
the  England  of  Mary  would  have  inevitably  resulted  in 
the  consignment  of  the  book,  if  not  its  author,  to  the 
flames;  but  the  Roman  arm  did  not  extend  to  Elizabeth's 
England,  and  the  Queen's  physician  might  safely  brave 
the  power  which,  in  his  boyish  days,  for  the  utterance  of 
heresies  far  less  pestilent  and  subversive,  he  had  seen  hale 
his  townsmen  and  neighbors  to  the  stake.  So  he  printed 
what  he  had  excogitated,  not  in  barbarous  monk-L,atin, 
bristling  with  contractions  and  packed  into  a  dumpy 
octavo,  after  the  fashion  of  most  scientific  works  of  the 
time,  but  in  language  which,  if  not  entirely  Augustan  and 
betraying  its  English  origin  in  its  sturdy  assertiveness  and 
bluff  invective,  is  far  from  destitute  of  rhetorical  grace; 
and  replaced  the  incubus  imprimatur  of  the  Holy  Inquisi- 
tion with  pictures  of  the  Queen's  Arms,  and  her  monogram 
and  her  falcon  badge  of  maidenhood,  inherited  from  the 
ill-fated  Anna  Boleyn,  and  her  rising  phoenix — semper 
eadem — which,  a  dozen  years  before,  had  soared  to  glory 
over  the  wreck  of  the  Invincible  Armada.  It  may  have 
been  chance  which  transferred  to  Gilbert's  pages  the  same 
emblazonments  which  appear  in  those  of  Darcie's  History 
of  England  of  earlier  date,  which  ends  with  the  story  of 
the  magnificent  victory  in  the  Channel;  it  may  have  been 


GILBERT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  269 

that  the  Cupids  and  flowers  which  entwine  the  Royal 
monogram  were  put  there  because  of  their  assumed  pleas- 
ant significance  to  the  "fair  vestal  throned  by  the  West;" 
but  no  one  will  deny  the  singular  appropriateness  of  the 
emblems  of  England's  grandeur  impressed  upon  the  first 
great  scientific  treatise  of  modern  times,  and  flaunting 
anew  the  challenge  of  the  free  Anglo-Saxon  in  the  field 
of  thought  as  in  that  of  arms.  Rome  denounced  the 
book;  but  there  is  no  record  that  along  with  the  treatises 
of  Galileo,  to  which  they  had  lent  inspiration  and  in  com- 
parison with  which  they  were  the  greater  offender,  the 
Italian  hangman  burned  the  pages  which  bore  the  English 
rose. 


I  have  stated  that  Gilbert's  physical  researches  were  in- 
tended to  support  the  Copernican  theory.  This  he  sought 
to  do,  not  directly,  but  by  founding  upon  his  experiments 
a  so-called  "magnetic"  hypothesis,  whereby  he  believed 
that  the  earth's  motion  could  be  explained.  A  brief  review 
of  this  speculation  is,  at  the  outset,  desirable.  Afterwards 
I  shall  note  the  unfavorable  reception  which  it  encoun- 
tered, and  the  possible  temporary  disrepute  of  Gilbert's 
entire  work  because  of  his  errors  concerning  dip  and  varia- 
tion. As  resulting  in  the  first  great  physical  investiga- 
tion, depending  upon  the  inductive  method,  some  consid- 
eration of  Gilbert's  mode  of  philosophic  thought  is  also 
necessary  :  all  of  the  foregoing  being  a  prelude  to  the 
review  of  the  discoveries  which  underlie  the  modern 
science  of  electricity. 

The  fundamental  arguments  which  Gilbert  advances  in 
support  of  the  heliocentric  theory  do  not  differ  essentially 
from  those  which  had  already  become  known  among  the 
Continental  philosophers.  He  regards  the  geocentric  doc- 
trine as  best  refuted  by  the  suggestion  of  the  immense 
rapidity  with  which  the  spherical  heavens  must  revolve — 
the  extravagant  whirling  of  the  primum  mobile — if  the 


270         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

earth  be  regarded  as  the  motionless  centre  of  the  universe 
(a  notion  which  had  occurred  long  before  to  the  Venetian 
Benedetti,  the  first  clear  refuter  of  Aristotle's  mechanics) 
and  which  Burton  quaintly  describes  as  so  great  that  uan 
arrow  out  of  a  bow  must  go  seventeen  times  about  the 
earth  whilst  a  man  can  say  an  Ave  Maria."  l  Such  earlier 
objections  as  this  to  the  Ptolemaic  system  he  epitomizes 
with  characteristic  perspicuity;  but  when  he  undertakes 
to  present  affirmatively  his  own  supposed  magnetic  proof 
of  the  earth's  motion,  he  becomes  both  doubtful  and  ob- 
scure; doubtful,  inasmuch  as  he  leaves  it  questionable 
whether  he  intends  to  accept  the  idea  of  an  annual  motion 
of  the  earth  about  the  sun,  and  obscure,  in  his  explanation 
of  the  manner  in  which  the  magnetic  quality  of  the  earth 
in  his  belief  causes  the  diurnal  movement  on  its  axis. 

In  developing  his  cosmical  theory,  Gilbert,  following 
the  precedent  of  earlier  co-believers,  makes  his  main  point 
of  attack  the  theory  of  Aristotle,  that  the  earth  is  spheri- 
cal and  has  its  center  coincident  with  the  center  of  the 
universe  about  which  the  heavens  revolve:  and  more  par- 
ticularly the  Peripatetic  argument  that  the  earth  does  not 
move,  first,  because  it  is  at  the  center  of  the  universe,  to 
which  all  heavy  bodies  gravitate  to  find  a  position  of  rest, 
and  second,  because  a  rotary  motion  would  not  belong 
naturally  to  the  earth  itself,  but  would  pertain  equally  to 
each  portion  of  the  earth,  whereas  such  is  obviously  not 
true,  all  of  these  portions  being  carried  in  a  straight  line 
to  the  center.2  Against  this  Gilbert  maintains  that  the 
earth  is  not  a  chaotic  spherical  mass,  but  one  having  de- 
finite poles  which  are  not  merely  mathematical  expres- 
sions, but  which,  on  the  contrary,  are  set  at  fixed  points, 
whereat  the  greatest  verticity  of  the  earth  is  manifested, 
and  whereon,  he  holds  it  is  magnetically  demonstrable, 
the  earth  revolves.  This  rotation  is  diurnal,  for  none  else 
will  account  for  the  attending  phenomena.  The  existence 

1  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  part  2,  \  2,  Mem.  3, 
a  Aristotle:  De  Ccelo,  ii.,  chap.  xiv. 


GILBERT'S  PHILOSOPHY.  271 

of  these  poles  is  due  to  a  creative  act  whereby  forces  prim- 
arily animate  were  implanted  in  the  globe  in  order  that  it 
might  steadfastly  take  direction  (in  space),  and  in  order 
that  the  poles  might  be  opposite,  so  as  to  serve  as  the  ex- 
tremities of  an  axis  on  which  the  earth  turns.  The  direc- 
tion in  space  is  such  that  the  North  pole  of  the  earth 
constantly  regards  the  Pole  star  ;  so  that,  if  that  pole  were 
turned  aside  from  this  steadfast  position  it  would  go  back 
thereto. 

It  will  be  apparent  that  this  doctrine  rests  upon  the  con- 
clusion that  the  earth  itself  is  a  freely  movable  magnet, 
having  poles  and  amenable  to  the  same  laws  as  the  compass 
needle.  How  this  was  reached  will  soon  be  shown. 

Thus  far  Gilbert's  theory  is  not  difficult  to  follow;  but 
when  he  comes  to  explain,  not  conditions  under  which  an 
asserted  rotation  of  the  earth  on  its  axis  might  take  place, 
but  how  such  rotation,  through  magnetic  means,  actually 
does  take  place,  difficulties  arise.  Obviously  any  tendency 
of  the  earth's  axis  to  return  to  normal  position  when  di- 
verted therefrom  cannot  account  for  the  revolution  of  the 
globe  itself.  But,  says  Gilbert,  the  whole  earth  regards  the 
Pole  star,  and  similarly,  each  true  part  of  the  earth  seeks  a 
like  place  in  the  world  (universe)  and  turns  with  a  circular 
motion  to  that  position.  The  natural  movements  of  the 
whole  and  of  the  parts  are  alike;  hence,  since  the  parts 
move  in  a  circle,  the  whole  has  circular  motion,  and  hence 
the  whole  earth  is  adapted  to  such  movement. 

This  is  not  only  inconclusive,  but,  on  prima  facie 
showing,  appears  to  be  nothing  more  than  the  theory 
of  Peregrinus  (that  the  magnet  is  directed,  not  solely 
by  the  poles  of  the  heavens  acting  upon  the  poles  of 
the  stone,  but  by  all  parts  of  the  heavens  acting  upon 
all  parts  of  the  stone)  which  Gilbert  has  applied  to  his 
huge  magnet,  the  earth.  But  so  to  assume  would  be  to 
involve  Gilbert  in  the  fatal  inconsistency  of  both  denying 
and  affirming  the  existence  of  a  rotary  heaven  ;  for,  ac- 
cording to  Peregrinus'  doctrine,  unless  such  be  present, 


272         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

there  is  no  force  acting  to  rotate  the  poised  stone,  while 
of  course,  in  the  Copernican  system,  a  rotary  heaven  has 
no  place. 

There  is,  however,  to  be  added  Gilbert's  further 
hypothesis  that  every  magnet,  the  earth  included,  is  sur- 
rounded both  by  an  "orb  of  virtue"  which  includes  the 
whole  space  through  which  the  magnetic  action  extends  ; 
and  by  an  "orb  of  coition"  which  includes  all  that  space 
through  which  the  smallest  magnetic  body  is  moved  by 
the  magnet,  and  beyond  which,  in  other  words,  the  magnet 
can  produce  no  motion  in  solid  matter.  In  modern  terms 
the  orb  of  virtue  may  be  regarded  as  the  whole  magnetic 
field  capable  of  recognition  as  such,  and  the  orb  of 
coition  that  part  of  the  field  in  which  a  selected  extremely 
small  magnetic  body  is  attracted.  These  orbs  or  spheres 
which  Gilbert  speaks  of  as  "effused,"  and  as  produced 
directly  from  the  earth's  exhalations,  are  magnetic  be- 
cause so  generated  ;  but  such  phenomena  are  by  no  means 
limited  to  our  globe  alone.  Thus,  he  considers  that  all 
heavenly  bodies,  and  especially  the  sun  and  moon,  have 
such  effused  spheres,  which  are  capable  of  acting  upon 
other  bodies  and  other  effused  spheres.  Hence,  not  only 
does  the  earth,  as  has  been  said,  remain  in  its  place  by  its 
own  magnetic  virtues,  but  "by  a  confederation  of  the 
adjacent  globes  through  the  connected  effluent  strengths, 
it  is  directed  harmoniously  to  its  neighbors  ;"  it  is  moved 
by  "the  conspiracy  of  motions  of  other  bodies  and  by 
their  effused  forms  moving  together,  especially  by  the  sun 
and  moon,  by  which  it  is  bounded  and  limited." 

It  seems  therefore  that  Gilbert,  besides  apprehending  the 
existence  of  a  field  of  force  around  the  earth,  also  pictured 
to  himself  the  action  of  that  field  upon  other  fields,  and 
of  other  fields  upon  it;  a  conception  so  far  in  advance  of 
his  age  that  nothing  but  his  unequivocally  direct  state- 
ments make  one  willing  for  a  moment  to  entertain  the 
belief  that  he  ever  harbored  it ;  a  conception  which  finds 
an  every-day  illustration  in  the  electric  motor — in  fact, 


GILBERT'S  ERRORS.  273 

in  every  electrical  apparatus  in  which  mechanical  motion 
is  caused  by  the  reaction  of  fixed  and  moving  fields  of 
force.  It  cannot,  of  course,  be  affirmed  that  Gilbert  con- 
ceived of  the  rotation  of  the  earth  in  the  fields  of  the  sun 
and  moon  in  any  such  way  as  we  regard  the  rotation  of  an 
armature  in  a  magnetic  field  ;  but  that  he  certainly  did 
regard  the  earth's  diurnal  rotation  as  somehow  due  to 
the  confederacy  and  conspiracy  of  the  earth's  effused  Form 
acting  on,  and  being  acted  upon  by,  the  effused  Forms  of 
other  celestial  bodies  is  plain. 

Of  course  all  this  probably  intensified  the  obscurity  of 
Gilbert's  theory  at  the  time  of  its  production.  And  an 
obscure  hypothesis,  intended  to  substantiate  another  which, 
according  to  prevalent  opinion,  was  not  philosophical  ar- 
gument, but  pestilent,  soul-destroying  heresy,  had  not 
much  way-making  power  even  among  those  who  disputed 
theological  conclusions  and  were  inclined  to  tolerate  truth 
regardless  of  the  finger-posts  at  Rome.  Hence  it  may 
readily  be  imagined  that  even  to  the  Copernicans  them- 
selves Gilbert  may  have  seemed  a  doubtful  auxiliary,  while 
there  was  manifestly  not  much  heart  of  grace  to  be  taken 
from  his  long  category  of  experiments  and  arguments, 
however  individually  true  and  interesting  they  might  be, 
so  long  as  they  seemed  in  respect  to  their  aim  and  object 
merely  a  ladder  leading  nowhere. 

There  was  a  more  serious  trouble  in  Gilbert's  work, 
however,  than  even  the  advocacy  of  proscribed  astronomi- 
cal doctrines,  and  that  lay  in  his  erroneous  notions  con- 
cerning the  dip  and  variation  of  the  compass.  At  the  time 
he  gave  these  to  the  world,  the  English  seaman  was  rapidly 
merging  the  pirate  in  the  merchant  adventurer,  the  naval 
supremacy  of  England  was  established,  there  were  no 
more  Invincible  Armadas  to  be  feared,  a  great  trade  was 
to  be  wrested  from  Spain  and  Portugal  and  Italy,  and  the 
exploits  and  discoveries  of  Drake  and  Raleigh  and  Fro- 
bisher  were  setting  the  heart  beating  and  the  fancy 
aflame  of  every  youth  in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  the 
18 


274         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

men  who  had  sunk  the  Danish  harriers,  and  who  longed 
to  voyage  to  Virginia  and  the  strange  lands  of  the  New 
World,  and  perchance  to  find  fortune  in  some  gold-logged 
galleon  on  the  Spanish  Main. 

Errors  likely  to  wreck  ships,  made  when  the  eyes  of  all 
Englishmen  were  turned  to  the  sea,  were  likely  to  prove 
doubly  harmful,  especially  as  there  was  nowhere  the  cor- 
rect knowledge  necessary  to  recognize  their  fallacy,  or 
even  to  prevent  people  presumably  expert  in  such  matters 
from  endorsing  them  as  truths.  Edward  Wright,  in  his 
prefatory  address  to  Gilbert's  treatise,  although  looking 
askance  at  the  magnetic  theory  of  the  earth's  rotation, 
(nevertheless  he  does  unot  see  why  it  should  not  meet 
with  indulgence  ")  grows  eloquent  over  Gilbert's  mistaken 
idea  that  the  dip  of  the  magnetized  needle  "differs  in  the 
ratio  of  the  latitude  of  each  region,"  and  that  hence,  the 
dip  being  once  determined  and  the  latitude  observed, 
"the  same  place  and  the  same  latitude  may  thereafter  be 
readily  found  by  means  of  the  dipping  needle  even  in  the 
darkness  and  fog."  Equally  erroneous  was  his  opinion 
that  compass  variation  is  nothing  but  the  deviation  of  the 
needle  to  more  massive  or  elevated  parts  of  the  globe,  and 
that  it  is  constant  at  the  same  place.  When  these  beliefs 
were  proved  to  be  wrong,  it  must  have  seemed  to  many 
that  not  only  was  Gilbert's  general  theory  vague  and 
indefinite,  but  that  even  his  especial  practical  applications 
of  it  to  the  purposes  of  the  navigator  were  misleading,  and 
more  likely  to  invite  the  perils  of  the  sea  than  to  prevent 
them. 

Before  the  extent  of  his  errors  and  uncertainties  was 
generally  perceived,  his  work  was  generally  praised  ;  but 
later  it  seems  to  have  fallen  into  oblivion.  Small  wonder, 
when  to  the  many  who  believed  it  heretical  were  added 
more  who  thought  it  open  to  the  charge  of  teaching 
delusions.  But  in  time  the  world  separated  the  delu- 
sions from  the  truths ;  it  rehabilitated  Gilbert,  not  for  his 
speculations,  not  even  because  he  rescued  the  study  of 


GILBERT  AND   ARISTOTLE.  275 

the  magnet  from  the  atmosphere  of  mysticism  which  sur- 
rounded it :  but  because,  in  celebrating  the  man,  it  like- 
wise celebrated  the  beginning  of  the  removal  of  all  natural 
science  from  the  quicksands  of  empiricism  and  specu- 
lation, and  the  placing  of  it  upon  the  solid  basis  of  actual 
experiment,  the  evidence  of  the  senses  and  philosophical 
thought. 


Although  Gilbert  constantly  revolts  against  the  physical 
theories  of  the  Peripatetics,  it  is  none  the  less  clear  that 
his  mind  was  deeply  tinctured  with  the  logic  and  meta- 
physics of  Aristotle.  But  he  stood  at  the  dividing  line 
between  the  old  philosophy  and  the  new.  To  the  rules  of 
the  Stagirite  he  could  conform  his  speculations ;  but  he 
drew  his  conclusions  under  the  rules  imposed  by  Nature. 
The  control  of  Aristotle  over  mental  processes  did  not 
imply  with  him  a  corresponding  control  over  the  inter- 
pretation of  physical  facts  ;  and  this  being  so,  he  definitely 
established,  for  the  first  time  in  the  world's  history,  the 
truth  that  metaphysical  arguments  alone  are  incompetent 
to  explain  Nature's  workings  or  to  detect  her  immutable 
laws. 

This  appreciated  makes  fairly  clear  the  method  of 
investigation  which  he  endeavored  to  follow,  and  sheds 
light  on  many  of  his  statements  otherwise  obscure  or  self- 
contradictory.  His  treatise  contains  much  of  what  Aris- 
totle calls  exoteric  discourse — a  process  of  noticing  and 
tracing  out  all  the  doubts  and  difficulties  which  beset  the 
enquiry  in  hand,  along  with  the  different  opinions  enter- 
tained about  it,  either  by  the  vulgar  or  by  individual 
philosophers,  and  the  various  reasons  why  such  opinions 
may  be  sustained  or  impugned.1  After  doing  this,  still 
following  the  procedure  of  the  Stagirite,  he  begins  to  lay 
down  and  follow  out  affirmative  principles  of  his  own, 
thus  passing  from  the  dialectic  to  the  didactic  stage.  But 

Aristotle:  Topica,  i.  (Grote,  Aristotle,  i.,  68). 


276         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

when  lie  comes  to  recording  his  experiments,  to  testing 
the  results  by  negative  arguments  and  contradiction,  to 
rising  from  particulars  to  the  general,  and  thus  deducing 
new  conclusions,  we  shall  find  in  practical  application  the 
principles  of  inductive  reasoning  which  his  great  contem- 
porary and  critic,  Francis  Bacon,  a  few  years  later,  formu- 
lated for  all  time  and  all  men.  The  discussion  of  Gilbert's 
relations  to  Bacon,  however,  must  be  deferred  to  another 
chapter,  in  order  that  our  present  review  of  his  theories 
may  progress  in  an  orderly  way. 

If  the  magnetic  earth-rotation  theory  be,  for  the  mo- 
ment, laid  aside,  Gilbert's  primary  thesis  is  that  the  globe 
consists  of  a  certain  solid  homogeneous  substance,  firmly 
coherent  and  endowed  with  a  primordial  actualizing  Form. 
The  various  substances  which  appear  on  the  surface  of  the 
globe  through  contact  with  the  atmosphere,  waters,  and  by 
influence  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  have  become  more  or  less 
deprived  of  the  prime  qualities  and  true  nature  of  this  ter- 
rene Matter.  But  the  lodestone  and  all  magnetic  bodies 
contain  the  potency  of  the  earth's  core  and  of  its  inmost 
viscera,  in  virtue  of  which  the  earth  itself  remains  in  posi- 
tion and  is  directed  in  its  movements.  Thus  the  earth  is 
in  fact  a  huge  magnet,  or  the  lodestone  is  a  fragment  of 
the  magnetic  earth  possessing  the  primal  Form  of  things 
terrestrial.  Between  Matter  and  Form  he  drew  substan- 
tially the  Aristotelian  distinctions. 

The  investigations  made  by  Gilbert  in  support  of  this 
theory,  consisted  first  in  determining  what  is  a  magnet, 
second,  the  cause  and  character  of  magnetic  attraction,  or 
as  he  preferred  to  call  it,  coition,  and  third,  the  nature  of 
its  polarity  or  directive  quality,  or  to  use  his  own  word, 
"verticity."  Having  found  certain  phenomena  of  the 
lodestone  true  of  the  earth,  and  conversely  certain  terres- 
trial phenomena  true  in  a  miniature  earth  made  of  lode- 
stone,  he  concludes  the  globe  to  be  itself  a  magnet,  and 
thence  proceeds  to  the  researches  wherein  he  not  only 
passed  in  review  all  preconceived  notions  of  magnetism, 


GILBERT'S  TERRELLA.  277 

and  probably  tested  every  experiment  thereto  relating  of 
which  he  could  find  record,  but  made  a  remarkable  num- 
ber of  new  discoveries.  More  than  this,  he  took  up,  for 
the  first  time  for  systematic  study,  the  phenomenon  of 
the  amber — not  primarily  for  the  purpose  of  inquiring 
into  its  nature,  but  really  as  a  digression,  and  with  the  ob- 
ject of  showing  that  it  was  totally  different  from  that  of 
the  magnet. 

The  research  begins  with  a  comparison  of  the  poles  of 
the  heavens,  the  poles  of  the  earth  and  the  poles  of  the 
lodestone;  and  the  proposition  is  at  once  laid  down  that 
the  poles  of  a  magnet  on  the  earth  look  toward  the  poles 
of  the  earth,  move  toward  them  and  are  subject  to  them. 
This  was  the  first  statement  of  the  truth  that  the  compass 
needle  is  governed — not  by  the  heavens  nor  by  the  Pole 
star,  nor  by  the  poles  of  the  heavens — but  by  the  mag- 
netic quality  of  the  globe  itself. 


GILBERT'S 


In  order  to  prove  the  like  nature  of  the  earth  and  the 
lodestone,  Gilbert  carved  a  piece  of  the  stone  into  spheri- 
cal form;  because,  as  he  says,  that  shape  is  the  most  per- 
fect, agrees  best  with  the  earth,  which  is  a  globe,  and  is 


the  first  edition  of  his  treatise  De  Magnete.  A  and  B  repre- 
sent the  earth's  poles,  F  the  earth's  centre  and  D  and  E  pivoted  com- 
pass needles  applied  to  the  lodestone  ball. 


278         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

better  adapted  for  experimental  purposes.  This  miniature 
earth  he  calls  an  earthkin  or  terrella,  and  upon  this  he 
makes  his  experiments,  mainly  by  placing  near  to  it 
pivoted  iron  needles  or  iron  plates,  and  noting  the  direc- 
tive or  attractive  force  exerted  by  the  globe. 

The  close  similarity  of  this  course  to  that  followed  by 
Peregrinus  will  at  once  be  apparent.  But  Peregrinus  re- 
garded his  spherical  magnet  as  a  miniature  representative 
of  the  celestial  sphere:  Gilbert  regarded  it  not  merely  as 
a  representative  of  the  spherical  earth,  but  actually  as  the 
earth  ;  in  the  sense  that  it  was  physically  a  fragment 
thereof,  possessing,  though  in  less  degree,  the  same  poten- 
cies and  energies.  Peregrinus  considered  the  magnetized 
needle  as  influenced  by  the  poles  of  the  spherical  heavens 
represented  in  the  lodestone  globe  :  Gilbert,  by  the  actual 
poles  of  the  small  spherical  lodestone,  in  precisely  the 
same  way  as  by  the  actual  poles  of  a  greater  spherical 
lodestone — namely,  the  earth. 

Yet  undeniably  both  Peregrinus  and  Gilbert  performed 
exactly  the  same  experiment  and  with  the  same  thing. 
Natural  phenomena  are  not  changed  by  the  names  men 
give  them,  and  whether  the  lodestone  globe  be  regarded 
as  a  miniature  earth  or  a  miniature  heavenly  sphere  cannot 
alter  in  the  slightest  either  the  nature  of  the  object  or  the 
effects  produced  by  it.  I  may  even  go  further  and,  as  I 
have  already  suggested  in  discussing  the  experiments  of 
Peregrinus,  point  out  that  the  analogy  of  the  lodestone 
globe  to  the  earth  may,  from  Peregrinus'  language,  be 
fairly  inferred  as  not  unperceived  by  him.  But,  there  is 
all  the  difference  in  the  world  between  approximating  a 
result,  however  nearly,  and  actually  attaining  it;  while 
there  is  no  argument  more  frequently  specious  and  hence 
more  perilous  than  that  which  seeks  to  establish  conclu- 
sions as  foregone  after  the  event.  Granting  that  Pere- 
grinus perceived  an  analogy  between  his  globular  lodestone 
and  the  earth — he  did  not  see  them  as  one  and  the  same 
thing  differing  only  in  magnitude.  Gilbert  did:  he  made 


GILBERT  AND   PEREGRINUS.  279 

his  terrella,  as  he  thought,  of  the  earth,  as  the  earth  and 
in  the  shape  of  the  earth;  judged  of  the  whole  from  the 
part,  and  thus  attained  the  conclusion  which  Peregrinus 
did  not  reach — namely,  that  the  globe  on  which  we  live 
is  a  huge  magnet. 

But  the  details  of  the  initial  experiments  on  the  terrella, 
its  manufacture  on  the  lathe  as  lapidaries  turn  and  polish 
crystals,  the  modes  of  finding  its  poles  and  magnetic  me- 
ridians by  short  bits  of  iron,  the  greater  attraction  of  the 
poles  for  these  pieces,  their  erection  at  the  polar  points, 
their  varying  inclinations  when  supported  in  different  parts 
of  the  field,  the  practical  demonstration  of  the  laws  of  mag- 
netic attraction 'and  repulsion,  and  the  distinguishing  of 
the  magnetic  poles,  Gilbert  takes  directly  from  the  famous 
Letter  of  Peregrinus,  at  times  almost  verbatim.  He  even 
copies  figurative  expressions  which  Peregrinus  uses,  such 
as  the  comparison  of  the  magnet  in  its  floating  bowl  to  a 
sailor  in  a  boat.  The  fact  that  Gilbert  makes  no  acknowl- 
edgment of  Peregrinus'  achievements  in  all  these  vital 
matters  some  may  find  explicable  by  the  disregard  for  the 
amenities  which  characterizes  his  entire  work.  Others 
again  will  find  it  difficult  to  reconcile  his  appropria- 
tion of  Peregrinus7  discoveries  with  his  immediately  fol- 
lowing statement  that  the  whole  philosophy  of  the  mag- 
net is  ill-cultivated  even  in  its  elementary  principles. 

.  It  is  true  that  this  systematic  habit  of  not  acknowledg- 
ing the  effective  work  of  his  predecessors  makes  it  no  easy 
task  to  distinguish  with  certainty  the  true  extent  of  Gil- 
bert's accomplishments,  even  in  the  light  of  the  review  of 
past  progress  which  has  already  been  presented.  He 
rarely  mentions  an  earlier  writer  except  to  dispute  conclu- 
sions, which  may  perhaps  be  due  to  the  influence  exerted 
upon  him  by  Aristotle,  who,  as  Bacon  repeatedly  re- 
marks, "as  though  he  had  been  of  the  race  of  the  Otto- 
mans, thought  he  could  not  reign  except  the  first  thing  he 
did  he  killed  all  his  brethren."1 

.  of  Learning,  Book  2.,  c.  viii.,  5.     "And  herein  I  cannot  a  little 


280         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

He  cites  Porta  more  than  any  one  else,  Cardan  next  and 
then  Fracastorio,  mainly  to  exhibit  their  errors;  but  he 
draws  freely  upon  Porta,  for  example,  in  stating  the  rela- 
tions of  divided  lodestones  and  the  behavior  of  magnetic 
bodies  in  the  field  of  force,  and  upon  Cardan  for  differentia- 
tion between  lodestone  and  amber.  If,  by  chance,  he 
happens  to  express  a  favorable  opinion  of  these  philoso- 
phers, he  always  manages  afterwards  to  reverse  it.  He  be- 
gins by  calling  Porta  a  philosopher  of  no  ordinary  note, 
and  ends  by  denouncing  his  statements  as  the  maunder- 
ings  of  a  babbling  crone.  Fracastorio  is  an  ingenious  phil- 
osopher and  also  a  reckless  speculator.  As  regards  Cardan, 
the  importance  of  whose  brilliant  differentiation  of  lode- 
stone  and  amber  we  have  already  seen,  Gilbert  is  at  least 
consistent,  for  he  never  permits  himself  any  praise  at  all 
of  the  famous  Milanese,  who  he  asserts  reasoned  solely  on 
the  basis  of  vague  and  indecisive  experiments.  And  as 
for  the  other  philosophers,  whether  writers  on  medicine, 
or  on  navigation,  or  on  astronomy,  ancient  or  modern, 
Platonist  or  Peripatetic,  charlatans,  such  as  Paracelsus,  or 
scholars,  however  of  learned  repute,  all  are  included  in 
censure  and  often  abuse,  which  last  perhaps  reaches  its 
lowest  level  in  a  bitter  anathema  against  Taisnier,  the 
plagiarist  of  Peregrinus;  although,  from  one  point  of  view, 
it  may  be  urged  that  the  only  difference  between  Taisnier 
and  Gilbert  himself  is  that  Gilbert's  plagiarisms  from  the 
same  source  are  much  the  more  complete  and  accurate. 

The  sole  exception  to  be  found  in  this  wholesale  con- 
demnation is  an  accordance  of  honor  to  Aristotle,  Theo- 
phrastus,  Ptolemy,  Hippocrates  and  Galen,  whence  he 
says  came  the  stream  of  wisdom,  and  who,  he  is  per- 

marvel  at  the  philosopher  Aristotle,  that  did  proceed  in  such  a  spirit  of 
difference  and  contradiction  toward  all  antiquity;  undertaking  not  only 
to  frame  new  words  of  science  at  pleasure,  but  to  confound  and  extin- 
guish all  ancient  wisdom;  insomuch  as  he  never  nameth  or  mentioneth 
an  ancient  author  or  opinion  but  to  confute  and  reprove :  wherein  for 
glory  and  drawing  followers  and  disciples  he  took  the  right  course." 
Advt.  of  Learning,  B.  2,  c.  viii.,  2.  Bacon  himself  did  the  same. 


GILBERT  AND  HIS  PREDECESSORS.  28 1 

suaded,  would  gladly  have  embraced  many  of  the  new 
things  brought  to  light  since  their  departure,  had  they 
known  of  them  ;  and  his  mention  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas, 
(who  seems  to  have  anticipated  his  notions  of  magnetic 
coition),  as  a  man  of  god-like  and  lucid  mind  ;  a  tribute 
which,  by  reason  of  its  solitude,  engenders  the  suspicion 
that  his  failure  to  contradict  it  subsequently  was  due  rather 
to  oversight  than  design. 

Following  the  general  enunciation  of  his  conception  of 
the  earth's  magnetism,  and  his  repetition  of  the  experi- 
ments of  Peregrinus,  Gilbert  enters  upon  the  researches 
which  are  plainly  original.  Then  he  rises  to  an  eminence 
so  lofty,  that  his  contemptuous  criticisms  of  his  predeces- 
sors soon  resemble  the  scorn  of  the  eagle  for  the  flights  of 
the  sparrows.  If  then  he  is  intolerant,  it  is  that  intoler- 
ance which  every  man  who  sees  the  truth,  however  ob- 
scurely, feels  for  others  who  preach  error  or  half  truth. 
If  he  seems  to  belittle  the  achievements  of  his  predecessors, 
it  is  due  to  that  instinctive  tendency  of  the  mind  to  con- 
clude that  that  which  is  false  in  part  is  false  in  all,  rather 
than  to  impute  to  truth  the  greater  leavening  power.  Con- 
sequently, when,  at  the  very  outset  of  his  studies,  he  finds 
Cardan  gravely  asserting  that  a  wound  by  a  magnetized 
needle  is  painless — when  he  had  only  to  prick  his  finger  to 
learn  the  opposite — or  Fracastorio  that  a  lodestone  will 
attract  silver,  or  Scaliger  that  the  diamond  will  draw  iron, 
or  Matthiolus  that  garlic  cuts  off  magnetic  attraction — all 
susceptible  of  easy  disproof,  which  disproof  he  actually 
makes  and  sees,  he  says,  in  the  uneuphemistic  terms 
characteristic  of  his  day,  not  that  these  people  are  mis- 
taken, but  that  they  wilfully  falsify.  After  that  the 
mental  process  is  easy.  Anything  proved  true,  he  un- 
doubtedly argued  to  himself,  if  drawn  from  that  sink  of 
mendacity,  redounds,  not  to  the  credit  of  the  sink,  but 
of  him  who  rakes  it  out.  Therefore  he  did  everything 
anew — not,  as  he  says,  for  the  purpose  of  refuting  prior 
falsehoods  or  overturning  old  delusions,  but  to  build 


282         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

up  the  new  physiology  of  the  magnet  from  the  very 
foundations. 

If  then  he  plagiarizes  Peregrinus,  it  is  not  the  ipse  dixit 
of  Peregrinus  which  he  copies  blindly,  regardless  of 
whether  right  or  wrong,  but  he  tests  the  experiments  of 
Peregrinus  crucially,  finds  them  true,  and,  for  that  reason, 
adopts  them  as  a  part  of  his  structure.  It  is  immaterial  to 
him  who  originated  the  experiment  which  he  tests — 
whether  himself  or  some  one  else.  The  great  question 
which  he  seeks  to  solve  is,  is  the  result  true — "Not  in 
books,  but  in  things  themselves?"  he  says,  "look  for 
knowledge."  Every  experiment — not  merely  those  which 
he  first  conceived,  but  those  of  any  and  every  origin — 
"has  been  investigated  and  again  and  again  done  and 
repeated  under  our  eyes." 

Gilbert's  philosophy,  resting,  as  I  have  said,  upon  that 
of  Aristotle,  is  imbued  with  the  distinction  between  Form 
and  Matter,  which  the  Greek  makes  of  fundamental  im- 
port in  his  Philosophia  Prima,  and  diversifies  with  an 
infinitude  of  subtleties.  Borrowed  by  the  Stagirite  from 
the  familiar  facts  of  the  sensible  world — that  matter  has 
always  some  shape  and  shape  has  always  some  matter,  and 
that  we  can  name  and  reason  about  matter  without  distin- 
guishing its  shape,  and  equally  name  and  reason  about 
shape  without  attending  to  the  material  shaped  or  its 
various  peculiarities — the  doctrine  assumed  the  abstract 
signification  of  two  correlates  inseparably  implicated  in 
fact  and  reality  in  every  concrete  individual  that  has 
received  a  substantive  name,  yet  logically  separable  and 
capable  of  being  named  and  considered  apart  from  each 
other.  Matter  is  the  lower,  inchoate  conception — the 
unactual  or  potential.  Form  actualizes  this  into  the  per- 
fect or  complete,  and  furnishes  the  energizing  principle. 
Matter  is  a  cause  co-operative.  Form  is  a  cause  operative. 
Matter  is  to  Form  as  brass  is  to  the  statue,  wood  to  the 
couch,  and  the  body  of  man  to  the  soul.1  Form  in  the 

1 1  have  followed  in  the  foregoing  the  close  analysis  of  the  Aristotelian 


MATTER  AND   FORM.  283 

writings  of  the  schoolmen  was  synonymous  with  at- 
tribute :  "it  is  that  by  which  a  thing  is."  An  angel  to  a 
schoolman  was  a  Form  not  immersed  in  Matter.  u  Angeli 
sunt  formae  immateriales,"  says  the  Angelic  Doctor.1 

The  Matter  of  the  earth,  according  to  Gilbert,  is  en- 
dowed with  Form  or  efficient  potencies  which  give  to  it 
firmness,  direction  and  movement.  Of  these  the  princi- 
pal feature  is  "verticity  " — a  word  which  he  coins  to  sig- 
nify the  self-directing  capacity  or  directive  polarity  of  the 
globe.  Just  to  the  extent  that  it  loses  Form — as  by  the 
terrene  Matter  becoming  combined  with  base  or  excremen- 
titiotis  substances — so  it  loses  verticity.  Ultimately  he 
draws  a  somewhat  subtle  distinction  between  this  unique 
and  peculiar  Form  which  he  ascribes  to  the  earth  and  the 
prima  forma  of  Aristotle,  by  limiting  the  first  to  a  partic- 
ular variety  or  kind  of  Form  which  keeps  and  orders  its 
own  globe — giving  a  specific  Form  to  the  sun,  another  to 
the  moon,  and  so  through  all  the  heavenly  bodies.  Thus 
he  reaches  his  general  conclusion  as  to  the  magnetic  na- 
ture of  the  earth,  and  at  the  same  time  differentiates  his 
theory  from  the  older  hypotheses. 

This  nature  is  not  derived  from  the  heavens  as  a  whole, 

conception,  given  by  De  Grote  in  his  discussion  of  the  De  Anima. 
Aristotle,  Vol.  II,  p.  181  et  seq. 

"The  implication  of  the  two  (Matter  and  Form)  constitutes  the  living 
subject  with  all  its  functions,  active  and  passive.  If  the  eye  were  an 
animated  or  living  subject,  seeing  would  be  its  soul ;  if  the  carpenter's 
axe  were  living,  cutting  would  be  its  soul ;  the  Matter  would  be  the  lens 
or  the  iron  in  which  this  soul  is  embodied.  It  is  not  indispensable,  how- 
ever, that  all  the  functions  of  the  living  subject  should  be  at  all  times  in 
complete  exercise ;  the  subject  is  still  living,  even  while  asleep  ;  the  eye 
is  still  a  good  eye,  though  at  the  moment  closed.  It  is  enough  if  the 
functional  aptitude  exists  as  a  dormant  property,  ready  to  rise  into 
activity  when  the  proper  occasions  present  themselves.  This  minimum 
of  Form  suffices  to  give  living  efficacy  to  the  potentialities  of  the  body  ; 
it  is  enough  that  a  man,  though  now  in  a  dark  night  and  seeing  nothing, 
will  see  as  soon  as  the  sun  rises  ;  or  that  he  knows  geometry,  though  he 
is  not  now  thinking  of  a  geometrical  problem."  Aris.,  De  Anima,  II,  i., 
p.  412,  a.  27. 

JSt.  Thomas  Aq.:  Sum  Theol.,  I,  q.  61. 


284         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

he  says,  neither  is  it  generated  thereby  through  sympathy, 
or  influence,  or  other  occult  qualities:  neither  is  it  drawn 
from  any  special  star;  but  the  earth  has  its  own  proper 
magnetic  vigor  or  Form,  just  as  sun  and  moon  have  theirs. 
Consequently,  as  a  fragment  of  the  sun  would  arrange 
itself  under  solar  laws  to  conform  to  the  shape  and  ver- 
ticity  of  the  sun,  or  a  fragment  of  the  moon  under  lunar 
laws  to  conform  to  the  shape  and  verticity  of  the  moon,  so 
a  fragment  of  the  earth  under  terrestrial  laws,  being  en- 
dowed with  the  same  magnetic  vigor  or  Form,  will  dispose 
itself  correspondingly  to  the  earth.  Now  as  a  lodestone  is 
not  merely  a  fragment  of  the  earth,  but  is  of  the  inmost 
earth  and  possesses  the  primal  Form  of  things  terrestrial 
and  the  whole  impetus  of  magnetic  Matter,  therefore 
it  has  the  fixed  verticity,  and  the  innate  whirling  motion 
of  revolution,  inherent  to  the  earth. 

The  notion  that  the  lodestone  is  both  a  fragment  of  the 
earth  and  is  polarized  by  induction  therefrom,  is  not  incon- 
sistent with  modern  ideas;  but  that  of  the  earth  rotating 
because  of  its  magnetic  quality  reduces  itself,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  to  mere  guess-work  and  to  proof  of 
the  strength  with  which  the  speculative  tendency  asserts 
itself,  even  in  a  mind  which  repudiated  u  probable  con- 
jectures" as  a  basis  of  reasoning,  and  despite  the  belief 
that  it  recognized  no  control  save  that  of  "sure  experiment 
and  demonstrated  argument." 

Not  only  does  Gilbert  explain  the  existence  of  magnet- 
ism through  the  Peripatetic  conceptions  of  Matter  and 
Form — the  last,  as  we  have  seen,  somewhat  modified  in 
particulars — but  he  recurs,  ultimately,  to  the  same  source 
for  ground-work  for  interpretations  of  special  magnetic 
phenomena.  Aristotle  applies  the  term  "nature"  to  a 
constant  which  perpetually  tends  to  renovate  Forms  as  per- 
fect as  may  be,  and  invariably  acts  in  a  uniform  way,  pro- 
ducing phenomena  which  are  regular  and  predictable. 
In  opposition  to  nature  stands  variability  or  chance, 
which  interferes  with  and  impedes  the  work;  so  that, 


GILBERT'S  LOGIC.  285 

although  results  which  have  taken  place  in  the  past  can 
be  definitely  stated  and  recorded,  those  still  in  the  future 
defy  all  power  of  prediction.1  One  example  may  be  cited 
which  will  serve  to  show  how  Gilbert  applied  this  hypo- 
thesis, while  incidentally  it  may  indicate  how,  being  as  I 
have  said  on  the  middle  ground  between  the  old  and  new 
philosophies,  he  wandered,  even  in  the  face  of  the  simplest 
experimental  proof,  from  the  path  of  logical  inductive 
reasoning. 

He  repeats,  in  exactly  the  same  way,  the  experiment  of 
Peregrinus,  showing  the  mutual  repulsion  of  like  poles  of 
two  parts  of  a  divided  lodestone  floating  in  water.  "By 
such  a  position  of  the  parts,"  he  says,  "nature  is  crossed 
and  the  form  of  the  stone  is  perverted.  But  nature  ob- 
serves strictly  the  laws  which  it  imposes  on  bodies,  hence 
the  flight  of  one  part  from  the  undue  position  of  the  other, 
and  hence  the  discord  unless  everything  is  arranged  ex- 
actly in  accordance  with  nature." 

This  obviously  is  the  Aristotelian  idea  of  necessity — 
the  constant  sequence  or  conjunction — the  fixed  means 
through  which  the  fixed  ends  of  nature  only  can  be  ob- 
tained. To  place  like  poles  in  juxtaposition  is  to  place 
them  wrongly,  and  then  Gilbert  avers  nature  is  perverted, 
and  the  Form  of  the  stone  disturbed,  and  hence  there  is 
discord  :  nor  can  there  be  any  compromise  but  only  war 
until  the  stones  acquiesce  as  nature  decrees.  He  does  not 
assert  that  under  given  circumstances,  shown  by  a  multi- 
tude of  experiments,  like  magnetic  poles  mutually  repel, 
and  that  thence  a  general  law  may  be  inferred  from  which 
their  similar  behavior  under  similar  circumstances  may 
be  predicted;  but  that,  when  everything  is  arranged  ex- 
actly according  to  nature — that  is,  unlike  poles  juxtaposed 
—then  these  parts  attract  one  another.  It  has  all  been 
"settled  by  nature." 

Gilbert  speculated,  as  I  have  said,  with  the  logic  of 
Aristotle,  but  he  made  experiments  and  interpreted  the 

'De  Interpretatioue:  Grote,  cit.  sup.,  vol.  i.,  166,  book  i,  chap.  vi. 


286         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

results  of  them  by  their  own  logic.  Unable,  struggle  as 
he  might,  wholly  to  divest  himself  of  that  reverence  for 
antiquity  peculiar  to  all  the  philosophical  thought  of  his 
time,  a  half-defined  belief  persisted  in  him  that  the  spirit 
of  the  Greek,  notwithstanding  the  lapse  of  two  thousand 
years,  was  still  competent  in  some  way  to  define,  to  eluci- 
date and  to  account  for  all  that  the  human  mind  might  find 
obscure;  but,  despite  such  belief,  he  saw  and  knew,  even 
though  he  might  not  admit  the  knowledge  to  himself,  that 
it  was  not  the  intellect  of  Aristotle,  but  his  own,  which  was 
making  for  straight  thought.  And  where  he  erred,  it  was 
because  he  courted  the  ancient  influence  and  ignored,  even 
if  he  did  not  fail  to  perceive,  the  plain  deductions  from  the 
facts  before  him.  None  the  less  he,  first  of  all  men,  system- 
atically replaced  the  great  doctrine  of  words  by  the  greater 
doctrine  of  works.  It  was  only  when  he  thought  it  in- 
cumbent on  him  to  reconcile  the  teachings  of  man's  books 
and  nature's  books,  and  just  in  proportion  as  he  allowed 
the  first  to  obscure  the  second,  that  he  landed  in  inevitable 
contradictions  and  fallacies. 

From  this  general  and  necessarily  brief  showing  of 
Gilbert's  mode  of  thought,  I  now  pass  to  his  actual 
experimental  work  and  the  physical  discoveries  resulting 
therefrom.  To  record  all  of  the  facts  relative  to  the 
magnet  which  Gilbert  first  brought  to  light,  and  to  show 
their  relation  to  the  modern  science,  would  involve  ex- 
planations far  too  extended,  if  not  too  didactic,  to  find 
place  here.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  do  so :  for  I  am  now 
approaching  the  period  when  we  may  begin  to  trace  the 
independent  development  of  amber-electricity  as  distin- 
guished from  that  of  magnetism,  and  need  therefore  in 
future  allude  to  the  latter  only  in  so  far  as  the  discoveries 
made  in  it  may  have  directly  conduced  to  such  progress. 
And  here  it  may  be  recalled  that  there  is  no  necessary  re- 
lation between  the  advance  or  rise  in  a  specific  branch  of 
knowledge  during  a  given  period  of  time  and  all  of  the 
discoveries  pertaining  thereto  made  within  the  limits  of 


GILBERT'S  THEORY  OF  THE  LODESTONE.         287 

that  period.  On  the  contrary  such  a  rise  is  apt  to  be  de- 
termined by  a  comparatively  few  salient  achievements, 
which  being  more  readily  appreciated  and  understood  than 
others,  are  more  promptly  turned  to  useful  account.  In 
every  stage  of  the  world's  progress  the  making  of  discov- 
eries "ahead  of  the  times"  has  been  going  on  ;  and  of 
these  perhaps  the  greater  proportion  remain  mere  items  of 
abstract  knowledge  for  years,  perhaps  for  centuries,  until 
thought  advancing  to  new  points  of  view  so  discerns  their 
practical  utility  :  or  some  keener  intellect  sees  in  them 
possible  applications  to  which  other  minds  have  been 
blind.  It  will  be  apparent  therefore  that  in  tracing  his- 
torically such  an  intellectual  rise  as  is  here  chronicled,  a 
more  or  less  arbitrary  selection  must  be  exercised,  and 
matters  often  in  themselves  important,  but  which  appear 
to  exert  no  active  influence  thereupon,  must  be  omitted. 
Otherwise  the  work  reduces  itself  to  the  gathering  of 
chronological  annals. 


After  having  declared  the  origin  and  nature  of  the  lode- 
stone  on  the  strength  of  initial  experiments,  which,  how- 
ever he  interpreted  them,  were  in  fact  drawn  mainly  from 
Peregrinus,  Gilbert  takes  up  the  problem  of  the  iron 
magnet;  forliere  was  plainly  a  substance  having  the  prop- 
erties of  the  lodestone  and  yet  differing  from  that  primary 
terrene  Matter,  although  of  like  Form  or  vigor.  He 
evolves  the  theory  that  the  earth  gives  forth  humors  or 
exhalations,  which  coalesce  with  solid  materials  to  form 
metals,  and,  if  these  materials  be  the  more  homogeneous 
or  internal  Matter  of  the  globe,  the  result  is  iron  or  lode- 
stone,  which  is  nothing  but  a  noble  iron  ore ;  if  they  be 
the  globe  Matter,  in  an  altered  or  baser  state,  or  efflor- 
escences, then  other  metals  are  produced.  Iron  ore  is, 
therefore,  the  homogenic  telluric  body  to  which  the  earth 
humor  has  been  added  ;  but  the  latter  does  not  destroy  the 
potency  of  the  earth-Form  existing  therein,  and  hence  it 


288         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 


remains,  or  may  be  rendered,  magnetic.  Lodestone  is  the 
same  body  concreted  with  a  stony  Matter;  and  both  mag- 
netized iron  and  lodestone  conform  themselves  to  the  globe 
of  the  earth. 

So  much  for  the  hypothesis,  fanciful  enough  in  itself, 
and  yet,  if  not  directly  leading  to  Gilbert's  practical  dis- 
coveries, at  least  not  serving  to  conduct  the  investigator 
directly  away  from  them,  as  many  an  older 
assumption  had  done. 

There  is  no  perspective  in  Gilbert's  record 
of  these  researches  save  that  leading  to  his 
supposed  magnetic  proof  of  the  Copernican 
doctrine.  Hence  the  difficulty  in  disentang- 
ling from  his  often  prolix  restatements  the 
really  novel  and  important  achievements. 
His  own  attempt  to  do  this  by  marking  large 
asterisks  beside  the  descriptions  in  his  book 
of  those  experiments  which  he  regards  as  of 
more  importance  is  of  little  aid,  since  this 
does  not  imply  that  the  matters  noted  are  of 
his  own  inception,  and,  in  some  instances, 
they  are  plainly  taken  from  Porta.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  possible  to  distinguish,  as  probably 
original  with  Gilbert,  the  following  remarka- 
ble discoveries  in  magnetism  : 

That  the  strength  of  a  magnet  can  be  aug- 
mented  and   preserved   by  placing   upon  its 
pole  an  iron  helmet  or  cap — the  effect,  as  now 
regarded,  being  to  collect  and  converge  the 
GILBERT'S     lines  of  force.     This  was  the  first  suggestion 
LOD^TONEs.1   °f  ^e  armature  or  keeper. 

That  the  magnetic   attraction  will  not  be 
cut  off  by  any  substance  except,  as  he  says,  by  an  iron  plate. 
That  the  earth  is  a  huge  magnet,  and  has  magnetic 
poles. 

That  the  compass  needle  is  directed  by  the  earth's  mag- 

1  From  the  first  edition  of  his  treatise  De  Magnete. 


GILBERT'S  MAGNETIC  DISCOVERIES.  289 

netism,  and  disposes  itself  in  the  line  of  a  great  circle 
passing  through  the  poles ;  or,  in  other  words,  in  a  mag- 
netic meridian,  a  term  also  first  used  by  Gilbert. 

That  iron  or  steel  acquires  magnetism  from  the  lodestone 
and  is  thus  itself  a  magnetic  body,  capable  of  attracting 
the  stone  as  the  stone  attracts  it,  so  that  the  two  come 
together  by  forces  mutually  exerted,  and  not  by  the  one- 
sided attraction  of  magnet  on  object.  This  was,  to  some 
extent,  pre-suggested  by  Cardan,  and,  long  before  him,  by 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  Cardinal  de  Cusa. 

That  the  magnetic  force  moves  from  one  end  of  an  iron 
rod  to  the  other.  It  travels  through  all  bodies,  he  says, 
and  is  continued  on  by  them.  Here  was  the  first  notion 
of  magnetic  conduction  ;  the  first  suggestion  of  the  pos- 
sible movement  of  the  force  from  point  to  point. 

That  magnetization  of  iron  occurs  with  great  rapidity. 
1  'It  is  there  in  an  instant,"  he  asserts,  uand  is  not  intro- 
duced in  any  interval  of  time,  nor  successively,  as  when 
heat  enters  iron,  for  the  moment  the  iron  is  touched  by 
the  lodestone  it  is  excited  throughout." 

That  the  lodestone  most  strongly  attracts  the  best  and 
purest  iron — that  the  best  iron  is  derived  from  the  lode- 
stone  or  magnetic  ore — that  the  strongest  magnets  are 
made  from  the  best  iron — and  that  the  best  iron,  even  if 
not  magnetized,  acts  like  the  lodestone  in  directing  itself 
to  the  earth's  poles,  through  induction  from  the  earth. 

That  iron  can  be  magnetized  by  simple  placing  in  the 
plane  of  the  magnetic  meridian — or,  better,  by  being 
hammered  or  wire-drawn,  or  heated  and  cooled  while  so 
disposed  ;  and  that  maintenance  of  a  magnet  in  the  same 
plane  conserves  its  properties.  Thus  Gilbert  says  that 
iron  bars  which  have  been  fixed  in  buildings  for  twenty 
years  or  more  in  north  and  south  position  acquire  ver- 
ticity,  and  thus  he  explains  the  magnetization  of  the  iron 
rod  taken  down  from  the  church  of  St.  Augustine  in 
Rimini  ;  a  phenomenon  which  Giulio  Cesare  had  accident- 
ally remarked  several  years  before.  There  is  a  world  of 
19 


THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

difference  between  such  a  physical  interpretation  as  this, 
and  the  assumption  that  the  iron  by  sympathy  or  simili- 
tude had  become  converted  into  a  lodestone. 

That  two  lodestones  fitted  with  armatures,  so  as  to  have 
a  common  pole-piece,  exert  a  much  greater  lifting  force 
than  either  separately.  This  is  the  compound  magnet. 

That  bodies,  to  use  the  modern  term,  can  be  saturated 


MAGNETIZING  HOT   IRON   BY   HAMMERING   IT  WHII.E  HELD  IN 
THE    MAGNETIC   MERIDIAN.1 

with  magnetism.  " Magnetic  bodies,'*  he  says,  "can 
restore  soundness  (when  not  totally  lost)  to  magnetic  bod- 
ies, and  can  give  to  some  greater  powers  than  they  origi- 
nally possessed ;  but  to  those  which,  by  their  nature,  are 
in  the  highest  degree  perfect,  additional  strength  cannot 
be  given." 

I  have  already  made  some  reference  to  the  orbs  of  virtue 

„  l  From  the  first  edition  of  Gilbert's  treatise  De  Magnete.  The  work- 
man is  directed  to  place  himself  facing  the  north,  and  to  hammer  the  hot 
iron  so  that  it  will  expand  or  elongate  in  a  northerly  direction. 


THE  ORB   OF  VIRTUE. 


291 


and  coition — the  effused  strengths  or  Forms  which  surround 
the  lodestone,  and  which  illustrate  Gilbert's  conception  of 
the  magnetic  force.  A  more  detailed  examination  of  his 
theory  shows  that  he  regards  the  force  of  the  terrella  as  sent 
out  in  all  directions,  attracting  whatever  iron  or  magnetic 
body  may  come  within  the  sphere  of  influence;  and  the 
nearer  the  iron  to  the  lodestone,  the  greater  the  force  by 
which  it  is  drawn.  The  shape  of  the  field,  he  thinks,  con- 
forms to  that  of  the  emitting  body,  and  he  compares  its 
physical  characteristics,  as  Porta  had  already  done,  to 
those  of  light;  but  he  goes  a  step  further  and  regards  it  as 
merely  soliciting  bodies  that  are  in  amicable  relations  with 


GILBERT'S  NOTION  OF  THE  ORB  OF  VIRTUE  AROUND  THE  MAGNET.1 

itself,  without  actually  exerting  any  motive  energy  upon 
them.  In  fact,  he  is  inclined  to  regard  the  magnetic  field 
not  merely  as  revealed  by  the  presence  of  bodies  of  mag- 
netic material  placed  in  it,  but  as  in  some  way  subjectively 
connected  with  such  bodies,  preventing  either  the  force 
being  imbibed,  or  given  back  to  its  original  source.  He 
finds,  however,  that  the  lines  of  magnetic  force  of  his  ter- 
rella are  meridional  and  numberless,  and  concludes  that 
the  center  of  the  terella  is  the  center  of  force,  although  the 

1  From  the  first  edition  of  his  treatise  De  Magnete.     A  is  a  compass 
needle  at  the  equator,  and  C  another  needle  at  the  pole  D. 


292         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

energy  is  concentrated  at  the  poles.  All  his  deductions, 
however,  lead  to  the  conviction,  on  his  part,  that  the  mag- 
net emits  no  true  effluvium — nothing  corporeal — and  that 
its  whole  action,  whether  attractive  or  directive,  depends 
upon  its  capacity  to  impart  its  Form  to  the  iron.  As  soon 
as  the  metal  conies  within  the  lodesto lie's  sphere  of  influ- 
ence, even  if  at  some  distance  from  the  stone,  the  Form — 
the  soul — of  the  iron  is  renewed:  that  which  before  was 
dormant  and  inactive  becomes  lively  and  active,  and  the 
Form,  being  now  arranged  and  ordered,  again  joins  forces 
with  the  lodestone,  and  the  two  bodies  enter  into  alliance, 
"whether  joined  by  bodily  contact  or  standing  within 
their  sphere  of  influence." 

The  most  curious  conclusions  to  which  Gilbert's  ideas 
of  the  magnetic  field  of  force  led  him,  are  those  which  are 
recounted  in  his  posthumous  volume.1  Here  he  asserts 
that  the  earth's  orb  of  magnetic  virtue  extends  to  the 
moon,  and  ascribes  the  moon's  irregularities  to  the  effects 
which  it  produces ;  that  the  moon  is  magnetically  bound 
to  the  earth  because  its  face  is  always  turned  earthwards, 
and  that  there  is  a  magnetic  coition  between  our  globe  and 
its  satellite,  the  seas  being  drawn  toward  the  moon  and  the 
moon  reciprocally  to  the  earth.  For  the  effused  lunar 
forces  he  says  reach  to  the  earth  and  act  on  fluids,  while 
the  magnetic  virtues  of  the  earth  surround  the  moon,  both 
bodies  agreeing  and  consenting  in  motion,  although  the 
earth,  by  reason  of  the  greater  mass,  predominates. 

Perhaps  more  interesting  than  all  else  is  his  assertion 
of  a  relation  which  the  greatest  modern  minds  have  sus- 
pected, have  sought  to  prove,  but  so  far  with  only  negative 
results.  All  that  is  of  the  earth  and  is  homogeneous  with 
it,  says  Gilbert,  belongs  to  it — so  of  the  sun,  and  the  moon, 
and  other  bodies.  Such  belongings  adhere  to  and  do 
not  spontaneously  leave  their  globes ;  and  if  they  are  re- 
moved by  external  force  they  seek  to  return,  because  each 

*De  Novo  Mundo,  Amsterdam,  1651. 


GRAVITY  AND   MAGNETISM.  293 

globe,  by  its  own  virtues,  attracts  them.  Otherwise,  the 
dissipation  of  the  universe  would  necessarily  follow. 

Now  this,  he  avers,  is  not  an  appetite  or  inclination  to 
position,  or  to  space,  or  to  a  boundary,  but  is  to  the  body, 
the  source,  the  mother,  the  beginning  where  all  are  united 
and  safely  kept.  Thus  the  earth  attracts  all  magnetic 
bodies,  besides  all  others  in  which  by  reason  of  material, 
the  primary  magnetic  force  is  absent ;  and  this  inclination 
to  the  earth  in  terrene  substances  is  commonly  called 
gravity.  The  gravity  of  a  body  then  is  inclination  to  its 
source,  and  all  things  which  come  of  the  earth  return  to  it. 

Thus,  repeating  himself  in  many  ways,  not  uninfluenced, 
perhaps,  by  the  recollection  of  the  return  of  all  flesh  to  the 
dust,  he  suggests  the  correlation  of  gravity  and  magnetism 
— a  thought  still  burning,  a  question  still  unsolved.  More 
than  two  centuries  afterwards  another  great  student  of 
nature,  facing  like  problems,  conceived  of  the  same  rela- 
tionship; and  it  was  while  endeavoring  to  penetrate  into  its 
mysteries,  the  one  by  speculation,  the  other  by  experi- 
ment, that  both  William  Gilbert  and  Michael  Faraday 
each  reached  the  ultima  thule  of  his  life-work. 

The  amber  phenomenon  had  begun  to  detach  itself  in 
men's  minds  from  that  of  the  lodestone,  as  Cardan's  differ- 
entiation plainly  shows.  Gilbert  now  made  the  separation 
complete,  and  not  only  brought  electricity — so  termed  as 
distinguished  from  magnetism — into  the  sphere  of  human 
thought  of  his  times,  but  gave  to  its  intellectual  progress 
an  impetus  which  has  ever  since  continued,  and  with 
growing  force. 

"Those  unobvious,  delicate  and  often  cumbrous  and 
tedious  processes  of  experiments  which  have  thrown  most 
light  upon  the  general  constitution  of  nature,"  says  Mill,1 
"would  hardly  ever  have  been  undertaken  by  the  persons, 
or  at  the  time  they  were,  unless  it  had  seemed  to  depend 
upon  them  whether  some  general  doctrine  or  theory  which 

'Mill:   System  of  Logic,  ii,  18. 


2Q4         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

had  been  suggested,  but  not  yet  proved,  should  be  ad- 
mitted or  not."  It  was  to  sustain  his  cosmical  theory  that 
Gilbert  accomplished  the  achievements  which  will  render 
him  forever  known  as  the  father  of  electrical  science. 
What  he  did,  and  how  he  did  it,  I  have  now  to  relate. 


Gilbert's  cosmical  system  is  based,  as  I  have  endeavored 
to  show,  upon  his  own  application  of  the  results  of  his  ex- 
periments to  the  Copernican  doctrine.  It  was  open,  there- 
fore, to  his  opponents  to  attack  him  either  by  disputing 
the  sufficiency  of  his  experiments,  or  by  showing  that  there 
were  other  phenomena  similar  to  those  of  the  magnet,  and 
presumably  of  like  nature,  which  could  not  be  accounted 
for  by  his  explanations,  and  hence  that  the  latter  fell  short 
of  universal  application  and  so  failed  to  satisfy  the  condi- 
tions of  the  problem  to  be  solved.  Naturally  the  assault 
would  be  directed  upon  the  new  and  specific  support  pro- 
vided by  him  for  the  Copernican  heresy  rather  than  upon 
the  theory  itself,  against  which  the  forces  of  the  prevail- 
ing theology  and  philosophy  were  already  turned;  and  this, 
it  may  be  fairly  presumed,  no  one  appreciated  and  per- 
ceived the  need  for  anticipating  better  than  did  Gilbert 
himself. 

Of  the  two  before-noted  objections,  that  which  went  to 
the  sufficiency  of  the  experiments  was  the  least  to  be 
feared,  for  he  could  point  to  such  a  multiplicity  of  tests — 
and  practically  did  so,  marking  the  records  of  some  two 
hundred  of  the  principal  ones  by  asterisks  on  the  margins 
of  his  pages  for  the  express  purpose  of  attracting  attention 
to  them  —  that  in  those  days,  when  from  the  slenderest 
physical  occurrence  unbounded  speculation  often  flowed, 
it  would  require  a  more  than  ordinarily  bold  disputant  to 
challenge  the  thoroughness  and  exhaustive  quality  of  his 
work.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  as  we  shall  see  later  on,  such 
an  antagonist  did  arise  ;  but  this  was  years  after  Gilbert's 
voice  had  become  forever  silent. 


THE  AMBER  QUESTION.  295 

The  other  possible  criticism  was,  however,  more  serious^ 
and  immediately  pressing.  Gilbert  knew  that  ostensibly 
at  least  it  was  well  founded:  he  knew  that  the  difficulties 
involved  must  be  met  and  overcome,  or  avoided  simultan- 
eously with  the  presentation  of  his  main  argument,  and  he 
knew  that  anything  less  than  complete  destruction  or 
avoidance  of  them  would  inevitably  result  in  his  own  con- 
fusion. 

The  peril  which  thus  menaced  him  came  from  an  un- 
solved problem  of  the  ages:  the  same  which  had  vexed 
Thales  twenty-two  centuries  before;  the  same  which  had 
persisted  to  mystify  men's  souls  ever  since;  the  riddle  of 
the  Amber  Sphinx,  which  now,  Oedipus-like,  he  must 
solve,  or  fall. 

Let  us  recall  two  facts:  first,  that  the  world  in  general 
classed  the  amber  and  the  magnet  together,  and  saw  no 
difference  in  their  respective  attractions  upon  other  bodies; 
and  second,  that  Cardan,  nevertheless,  had  drawn  a  clear 
distinction  between  them  and  had  contrasted  their  be- 
havior. With  the  popular  opinion  and  with  that  of  Car- 
dan, Gilbert  was  fully  familiar.  He  saw  that  the  effect  of 
the  first  would  be  at  once  to  lead  people  to  attempt  to 
apply  his  magnetic  theories  to  the  amber  attraction,  while 
that  of  the  second  was  an  authoritative  impress  upon  his 
own  mind  of  reasons  why  the  discovery  of  discrepancies 
would  follow.  Granting,  for  example  (he  perhaps  argued 
to  himself),  that  the  magnet  and  the  amber  are  alike  in 
attractive  power,  they  are  not  so  in  verticity;  and,  if  the 
attractive  capacity  shows  that  both  contain  the  same 
assumed  primordial  terrene  Matter,  how  is  it  that  the  Form 
which  determines  self-direction  in  the  one  is  absent  in  the 
other?  What  is  this  primordial  Matter  which  can  exhibit 
such  totally  different  physical  characteristics  as  are  seen  in 
the  light  and  brilliant  resin  and  the  heavy  and  dark  stone? 
Even  if  the  Form  be  the  same,  is  the  Matter  identical  in 
both?  If  verticity  is  absent  in  the  amber,  is  this  because 
the  latter  is  an  ''efflorescence"  and  hence  "impaired" 


296         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

primordial  Matter?  But  what  impairment  is  it  which 
excludes  one  essential  quality  (verticity)  and  not  the  other 
(attraction)?  Why  are  not  both  qualities  equally  impaired, 
or  both  absent,  as  in  inferior  magnets  or  in  most  sub- 
stances? Why  does  amber  or  jet  (then  supposed  to  be 
black  amber)  alone,  out  of  all  the  vast  number  of  terrene 
bodies,  exhibit  this  strange  attraction  ?  How  is  the  draw- 
ing of  all  light  bodies  by  amber  to  be  reconciled  with  the 
selective  property  of  the  magnet,  which  enables  it  to  draw 
only  iron  and  steel?  How  is  it  that  the  magnet,  being 
wholly  or  mainly  primordial  terrene  Matter,  can  effuse  and 
excite  a  new  Form  in  iron  alone  ;  when  amber,  which,  if 
primordial  terrene  Matter  at  all,  lacks  a  chief  capacity 
thereof,  is  able,  on  the  same  reasoning,  to  excite  a  new 
Form  in  any  substance  which  is  light  and  minute  in  size? 
If  amber  does  not  excite  such  a  Form  in  the  thing  attracted, 
where  is  there  coition  in  the  attractive  action?  if  it  does, 
why  is  there  not  some  residual  attractive  power  left  in  the 
straw  or  chaff,  such  as  the  lodestone  leaves  in  the  iron? 
If  there  be  two  effused  Forms  respectively  different,  one 
proceeding  from  the  amber  and  the  other  from  the  magnet, 
which  is  the  true  Form  effused  by  primordial  terrene  Mat- 
ter? Which  the  true  effused  Form  of  the  earth?  How  is 
it  that  this  attractive  capacity  is  always  present  and  in- 
herent in  the  lodestone,  and  not  so  in  the  amber  unless  the 
resin  be  excited?  If  magnetic  attraction  is  a  primordial 
terrene  characteristic,  implanted  by  creative  act,  why  is 
human  aid  necessary  to  develop  it  in  a  certain  substance? 
What  is  the  effused  Form  of  a  heavenly  body  if  it  under- 
goes attrition  in  space?  that  of  amber,  or  that  of  lodestone, 
or  a  combination  of  both? 

It  is  needless  to  multiply  such  questions,  for,  the  instant 
the  doubt  fell  into  the  placid  pool  of  theory,  it  roughened 
the  surface  in  circle  after  circle,  ever  widening  until  the 
smooth  quiescence  was  gone.  The  issue  no  longer  was 
one  limited  by  the  mere  observation  that  a  bit  of  amber 
attracts  a  particle  of  chaff  only  when  rubbed,  and  a  bit  of 


THE   AMBER  QUESTION. 

lodestone  a  particle  of  iron  always  ;  but  to  Gilbert  it  was 
a  universal  problem,  dealing  with  the  relations  of  worlds 
and  the  structure  of  the  universe.  He  saw  that  it  touched 
the  very  heart  of  his  whole  cosmical  hypothesis. 

Thus  Gilbert  came  to  study  the  amber,  not  for  the  first 
time  in  the  world's  history,  but  for  the  first  time  by  the 
methods  which  he  had  brought  into  use  in  finding  out  the 
laws  of  the  lodestone :  methods  which  ultimately  led,  not 
to  the  futile  utterance  of  "corn"  or  "millet"  before  the 
closed  door,  but  of  the  magic  "Open  Sesame."  But  what 
had  he  before  him  indicating  where  to  begin  his  quest? 

The  new  facts  which  had  been  added  to  the  knowledge 
of  the  ancients  concerning  the  amber  had  been  noted  by 
Cardan,  who  had  not  only  drawn  the  suggestive  distinc- 
tion between  the  amber  and  the  magnet,  but  had  agreed 
with  Fracastorio  in  the  averment  that  the  amber  quality 
also  resides  in  another  and  totally  different  substance, 
namely,  the  diamond.  Nor  did  this  capacity  of  the  dia- 
mond lack  apparent  corroboration  from  other  philosophers. 
Scaliger  had  alluded  to  it  in  his  commentary.  Porta  had 
specifically  asserted  that  an  iron  needle  rubbed  with  a 
diamond  would  turn  northward,  as  when  rubbed  with  the 
lodestone.  And  Fracastorio  had  not  merely  recorded  the 
drawing  of  "hairs  and  twigs"  by  both  amber  and  dia- 
mond, but  in  the  very  passage  from  his  work  which  Gil- 
bert quotes,  he  ascribes  the  effect  to  a  principle  inherent 
in  and  common  to  both  resin  and  gem.  Nevertheless,  it 
is  not  likely  that  Gilbert  seriously  considered  these  asser- 
tions, much  less  tested  them  by  experiment,  without  some- 
thing of  a  mental  struggle.  His  antagonism  to  Cardan 
and  all  his  works  is  profound.  For  Scaliger  he  has  only 
contemptuous  indifference.  Porta's  assertion  he  put  to 
specific  trial  with  great  elaboration  and  at  no  small  ex- 
pense, for  he  says  he  tested,  before  many  witnesses,  the 
frictional  effect  on  iron  of  seventy-five  diamonds,  with  the 
result  of  completely  refuting  the  Neapolitan  philosopher's 
averment.  Still  the  doubt  remains.  Cardan  had  said  to 


298         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

rub  the  diamond  itself — not  to  rub  iron  with  the  diamond 
— and  the  attraction  thus  produced  could  not  be  explained 
away  by  inconsequent  suggestions  that  Porta  had  been  mis- 
led by  a  similarity  in  names,  and  had  confused  adamas,  the 
diamond,  with  adamas,  the  lodestone.  Besides,  however 
much  Gilbert  might  flout  Cardan,  or  refute  Porta,  there  re- 
mained the  clear  statement  of  Fracastorio,  whom  he  knew 
to  be  neither  a  charlatan  nor  a  mere  transcriber,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  a  philosopher  of  commanding  eminence  and  fame. 

In  the  end  Gilbert  probably  rubbed  some  of  his  seventy- 
five  diamonds  and  found  Cardan  and  Fracastorio  to  be 
right.  But,  as  he  was  not  seeking  to  establish  their  re- 
putations, he  did  not  trouble  himself  to  record  the  fact,  but 
left  the  famous  Italians  pilloried  with  the  other  philoso- 
phers as  u  word-mongers  "  and  "chattering  barbers" — a 
species  of  comparative  vituperation  which  came  not  unread- 
ily from  the  student  of  Vesalius  and  Fallopius,  already  over- 
flowing with  fine  scorn  for  the  blood-letting  and  tooth- 
drawing  knights  of  the  lather  and  basin,  who  in  England 
were  contesting  the  right  to  practice  surgery  with  the  reg- 
ular professors  of  the  healing  art. 

The  great  point  gained  was  not  perception  of  the  fact 
that  something  else  beside  amber  would  attract  in  the 
same  way,  but  the  proof  of  it.  The  immediately  following 
questions  were:  are  there  any  other  substances  having  this 
same  capability?  If  so,  how  many?  Are  they  so  few  that 
the  behavior  of  all  can  be  lightly  explained  away  as  a 
lusus  natures,  and  the  general  hypothesis  so  saved?  Are 
they  so  numerous  and  of  such  importance  that  another 
theory,  not  inconsistent  with  the  first,  may  be  predicated, 
which  will  subsist  concurrently  by  satisfying  the  peculiar 
physical  conditions  of  the  amber  and  its  cognates,  while 
not  extending  to  the  great  cosmical  application  of  the 
magnetic  hypothesis?  Are  they  so  overwhelmingly  many 
as  to  destroy  the  cosmic  theory  in  toto  by  reducing  its 
magnetic  foundation  to  insignificance. 

These,  or  like  questions,  I  believe,  led  to  the  first  delib- 


THE  BEGINNING  OF  MODERN   ELECTRICITY.         299 

erate,  orderly  effort  to  study  electricity  as  a  separate  and  . 
distinct  entity  in  the  economy  of  nature.  The  second 
chapter  of  the  second  book  of  De  Magnete  opens  with  a 
characteristic  onslaught  upon  the  whole  tribe  of  commen- 
tators, theologians  and  metaphysicians ;  or,  perhaps  more 
correctly,  upon  that  variety  of  them  who  spent  their  lives 
in  glossing  one  another's  errors,  or  in  spinning  cobweb 
learning  from  their  own  brains  and  entangling  their  wits 
in  self-contrived  labyrinths.  For  especially  keen  reproach, 
however,  are  singled  out  the  modern  authors  who  had 
written  about  amber  and  jet  because  they  had  contented 
themselves  with  stating  the  attractive  qualities  in  an  occult 
way  and  never  presented  any  experimental  proof  of  them. 
This  is  sweeping  enough  to  include  Fracastorio,  but 
whether  it  properly  applies  to  Cardan,  who,  however  occult 
he  might  have  been  in  describing  other  things,  was  un- 
deniably explicit  and  straightforward  in  his  description  of 
the  amber  (and  who,  moreover,  in  his  De  Subtilitate,  makes 
a  strong  plea  for  more  experimental  proof  than  was  cus- 
tomary among  his  congeners),  may  be  fairly  questioned. 
But,  as  Gilbert  had  evidently  determined  not  to  recognize 
Cardan  in  the  matter  of  the  diamond  discovery,  the  casting 
of  him  into  outer  darkness,  in  respect  to  more  debatable 
achievements,  was  not  difficult.  Hence,  he  makes  no 
reservations'in  favor  of  the  Italian  or  of  any  one  else.  All 
are  embraced  in  one  inclusive  "they." 

The  famous  announcement  which  begins  the  modern 
science  is  as  follows: 

"For  not  only  amber  and  jet,  as  they  think,"  he  says, 
"attract  corpuscles,  but  so  also  do  (and  now  he  sets  first 
foot  upon  the  great  new  field  which  still  stretches  so  far 
before  us)  the  diamond,  the  sapphire,  the  carbuncle,  the 
iris  stone,  the  opal,  the  amethyst,  the  vincentina,  the 
English  gem  or  Bristol  stone,  the  beryl,  rock  crystal, 
glass,  false  gems  made  of  crystal  or  paste  glass,  fluor  spars, 
antimony,  glass,  belemnites,  sulphur,  antimony  glass, 
mastic,  lac  sealing  wax,  hard  resin,  orpiment,  rock  salt, 
mica  and  rock  alum." 


300         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISK   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

It  was  an  astounding  discovery — this  prevalence  of  the 
amber-soul.  It  meant  that  the  spirit  which  men,  through 
all  ages,  had  supposed  locked  in  the  amber  along  with  the 
dead  flies  and  bees  there  imprisoned,  had  never  been  so 
confined.  This  was  an  Ariel  which  had  not  been  bound 
in  the  cleft  pine,  now  at  last  set  loose  by  the  magician's 
hand,  but  a  sprite  which  had  always  been  free  to  play  a 
part  among  the  things  of  heaven  and  earth  undreamt  of  in 
man's  philosophy.  But  Gilbert  was  no  poet,  nor  ever 
"waxed  desperate  in  imagination."  Even  when  his  inner 
vision  pictured  the  eternal  motion  of  the  rolling  spheres, 
their  silent  music  never  reached  his  thought.  Besides,  in 
the  present  instance,  he  was  vitally  concerned  with  the 
bedevilments  of  his  theory,  which  seemed  likely  to  follow; 
and  a  clear,  practical  and  definite  understanding  of  the 
physical  cause  was  what  he  needed,  and  least  of  all  any 
befogging  of  it  by  poetic  imagery  or  idealization. 

What  could  be  more  different  than  the  substances  which 
this  force  seemed  to  animate — what  more  contrasting  than 
sulphur  and  the  sapphire — or  the  true  gems  and  the  false? 
There  were  no  such  dissimilarities  between  the  various 
kinds  of  lodestone,  or  even  between  the  lodestone  and  the 
iron  ;  so  that  the  attracting  capacity  possessed  by  these 
involved  no  great  diversity  of  substance.  But  here  was 
attraction  existing  in  bodies  so  totally  unlike  that  to 
assert  that  all  of  them  contained  a  primordial  terrene 
magnetic  Matter,  would  be  to  ascribe  to  that  assumed  sub- 
stance a  Protean  capacity  for  change  which  would  virtu- 
ally argue  it  out  of  existence. 

It  was  plain,  therefore,  that  the  amber  quality  was  not 
something  exceptional  pertaining  to  the  resin,  but  de- 
pended upon  some  cause  hitherto  unrecognized  yet  widely 
prevalent.  Equally  plain  was  it  also  to  Gilbert,  that  so 
far  from  the  difficulties  of  bringing  this  phenomenon  into 
harmony  with  his  magnetic  hypothesis  being  diminished 
by  the  discovery  of  such  prevalence,  they  were  so  greatly 
magnified  as  to  render  the  effort  obviously  futile.  A  few 


THE   AMBER   PHENOMENON.  301 

years  earlier  it  would  have  been  easy  to  attribute  every- 
thing troublesome  to  the  influence  of  the  stars  or  any  other 
4 'occult"  control,  and,  in  fact  even  then,  books  on  "the 
miracles  of  nature"  jostled  the  commentaries  on  Aristotle 
on  the  shelves  of  every  philosopher.  But  nothing  could 
have  been  more  repugnant  to  Gilbert  than  such  a  course. 
The  amber  effect,  he  saw,  must  be  accounted  for,  and 
now,  by  an  hypothesis  which  would  be  consistent  with, 
though  different  from,  the  broad  theory  which,  at  all  haz- 
ards, was  to  be  maintained.  Such  was  the  path  which 
now  opened  before  Gilbert. 

Far  back  in  mediaeval  times  there  arose  that  curious 
divagation  of  the  human  mind,  based,  perhaps,  in  some 
degree,  on  the  ascendency  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy 
of  words,  of  seeking  to  explain  things  not  understood  by 
giving  to  them  new  names.  I/ater,  this  was  carried  to 
extremes  by  Paracelsus,  and  the  same  course  has  since 
been  followed  by  charlatans  generally.  It  was  also  in 
Gilbert's  day  the  custom  of  the  alchemists,  and,  to  some 
extent,  that  of  all  scientific  students,  to  hide  discoveries 
and  modes  of  operation  in  arbitrary  words  and  phrases, 
often  the  merest  gibberish,  of  which  only  the  users  knew 
the  meaning.  Thus  there  came  into  existence  a  pedantic 
terminology. 

"A  Babylonish  dialect  which  learned  pedants  most  affect," 

which  invaded  every  department  of  knowledge  and  which, 
in  some  branches  of  science,  though  much  modified  and 
more  logically  conceived,  still  flourishes. 

Gilbert,  from  his  own  professional  experience,  was  well 
aware  of  the  dangers  which  word-manufacture  involved  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  temptations  which  it  offered  on  the 
other ;  for,  no  matter  how  sure  his  experiments  and  well- 
demonstrated  his  arguments,  the  necessary  learning  of  a 
new  vocabulary  would  be  almost  an  insurmountable  bar- 
rier to  the  very  minds  to  which  his  appeal  lay  from  the 
schoolmen  and  philosophants.  But  when  he  unearths 


302         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

matters  that  are  genuinely  hidden,  and  which  must  be 
identified  somehow  in  speech,  by  marks  which  enable 
them  to  become  the  subjects  of  discourse,  Gilbert  has  no 
hesitation  in  naming  them,  and  the  orbs  uof  virtue"  and 
41  of  coition"  already  alluded  to,  are  instances  of  such  des- 
ignations. These,  with  something  of  the  same  care  which 
is  found  in  the  definitions  of  terms  used  in  a  modern  Brit- 
ish Act  of  Parliament,  he  groups  together  and  elucidates 
in  a  separate  and  commendably  brief  glossary  prefixed  to 
his  De  Magnete. 

The  discovery  of  many  substances  partaking  of  the 
amber  quality  raised  at  once  the  need  of  a  generic  term 
including  and  fairly  describing  all,  by  which  they  might 
be  spoken  of  and  thought  about  without  repetition  and 
circumlocution.  The  property  which  all  had  in  com- 
mon was  that  of  attracting  corpuscles.  And  this  attrac- 
tion was  not  similar  to  that  of  the  lodestone,  but  similar 
to  that  of  the  amber  :  similar,  because,  whatever  its  true 
cause  might  be,  it  was  certainly  ostensibly  exerted  in  like 
manner  to  the  amber  attraction.  Gilbert's  treatise  being 
in  L,atin,  he  frequently  translates  the  English  word 
"amber"  by  the  Latin  "electrum" — a  derivative  from 
the  Greek  ^m-pov — and,  on  this  basis,  originates  the  term 
for  the  new  genus.  The  word  which  he  so  coins  is 
"Electrica"— translatable  as  "  electrics  "—which  he  de- 
fines as  signifying  uquae  attrahunt  eadem  ratione  ut  elec- 
trum"  (those  substances  which  attract  in  the  same  manner 
as  the  amber).  Thus  the  father  of  the  science — by  right 
of  paternity — gave  to  it  its  name ;  for  the  subsequently- 
invented  word  "electricity"  simply  refers  to  the  condition 
or  state  prevailing  in  an  electric.1 

I  have  now  to  outline  the  course  of  Gilbert's  experi- 
menting and  the  principal  results  which  he  achieved. 
Trying  his  electrics  on  many  different  substances,  he  soon 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  they  will  all  attract,  not  only 

1  Further  on  I  have  noted  the  origin  of  other  similarly  derived  words 
such  as  "electrical,"  etc. 


GILBERT'S  ELECTROSCOPE.  303 

straws  and  chaff,  but  metals,  woods,  leaves,  stones,  earths, 
even  water  and  oil — "everything  which  appeals  to  the 
senses" — provided  it  be  not  aflame  or  in  a  too  rarefied 
state.  He  is  working  from  the  vantage-ground  of  the 
isolated  facts  observed  by  others,  and  thus  he  moves  be- 
yond the  implication  of  Fracastorio  that  the  amber  attracts 
only  "hairs  and  twigs,"  and  incidentally  seizes  a  con- 
genial opportunity  to  anathematize  Alexander  of  Apro- 
diseus  for  drawing  an  absurd  conclusion  to  the  effect  that 
the  resin  exercises  an  occult  selection  in  attracting  only 
the  stalks  and  not  the  leaves  of  the  garden- basil.  In  like 
manner  he  passes  beyond  the  bounds  of  Cardan's  discovery 
that  the  amber  attraction  may  be  cut  off,  and  shows  that  a 
screening  effect  happens  on  the  interposition  of  moist 
breath,  a  current  of  humid  air,  a  sheet  of  paper,  water, 
linen  cloth,  and  the  silk  gauze  known  as  "sarsnet." 

He  is  not   satisfied   with  merely  stating   that   he   has 


GILBERT'S  ELECTROSCOPE.1 

proved  all  this  by  actual  experiment.  So  anxious  is  he  to 
avoid  even  the  appearance  of  the  prevailing  mysticism,  so 
careful  to  forestall  any  possible  charge  of  concealing  his 
mode  of  operating,  so  Faraday-like  in  his  desire  to  leave 
behind  him  his  ladder  for  the  use  of  others  to  come,  that 
he  invites  a  repetition  of  his  tests  and  a  reverification  of 
conclusions,  and  describes  the  simple  apparatus  which  he 
has  employed.  He  calls  it  a  versorium — in  modern  terms 
it  is  an  electroscope — made  of  a  light  metal  rod  centrally 
poised  on  an  apex  like  the  needle  of  a  compass.  It  turns 
to  the  rubbed  electric  when  the  latter  is  brought  near  its 

1  From  the  first  edition  of  Gilbert's  treatise  De  Magnete. 


304         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

end,  and  so  shows  the  attractive  effect.  Before  he  devised 
this  he  seems  to  have  made  the  electric  draw  to  itself  the 
attracted  object  bodily ;  but  he  found  that  the  attractive 
force,  in  some  substances,  was  too  weak  to  overcome  both 
inertia  and  frictional  resistance,  and  the  pivoted  needle, 
the  position  of  which  a  very  small  drawing  force  could 
easily  disturb,  was  therefore  contrived. 

This  is  the  first  of  all  instruments  depending  upon 
amber-electricity.  And  again  what  is  it  essentially  but 
the  compass  needle?  Not  the  freely-movable  magnet 
needle  turning  itself  under  the  influence  of  the  earth's 
magnetic  field  and  yielding  itself  to  the  earth's  attraction, 
but  simply  a  freely-movable  needle  of  any  substance  turn- 
ing itself  under  the  influence  of  the  electric  field  of  the 
rubbed  amber  and  yielding  itself  to  the  amber's  attraction. 
Here  was  the  first  electrical  invention  beyond  the  mariner's 
compass,  the  adaptation  of  the  same  physical  means  (the 
balanced  needle  rotating  on  its  pivot)  to  the  recognition  of 
the  fact  of  a  field  of  force.  Gilbert  had  shown  how  that 
colossal  magnet — the  earth — governed  the  compass  needle, 
and  how  the  same  control  was  exerted  upon  the  needle  by 
the  miniature  earth — the  terrella.  Also  he  had  shown  that 
the  excited  amber  would  attract  any  substance  provided 
the  latter  were  light  in  weight  and  so  within  its  exertable 
strength.  A  step  further,  and  the  excited  glass  or  sulphur 
and  the  compass  needle — the  two  things  that  lay  respec- 
tively at  the  beginning  of  the  new  advance  and  at  the 
culmination  of  the  old — came  together :  and  the  needle, 
(immaterial  whether  magnetic  or  not,  so  long  as  it  were 
light  and  easily  controllable,)  moved  in  response  to  the 
call  of  the  electric. 

By  means  of  this  instrument,  Gilbert  says,  he  detected 
his  electrics,  and  thus  suggests  the  amount  of  patient 
labor  which  he  brought  to  the  task.  How  many  sub- 
stances he  procured,  rubbed  and  carried  to  his  needle,  only 
to  see  it  remain  motionless,  we  can  but  surmise.  In  the  list 
which  he  gives  of  things  which  are  non-electrics,  because 


THE   ELECTRICS   AND   NON-ELECTRICS.  305 

they  failed  to  move  the  versorium,  are  emerald,  agate,  car- 
nelian,  pearls,  jasper,  chalcedony,  alabaster,  porphyry, 
coral,  marbles,  coal,  flint,  bloodstone,  emery,  bone,  ivory, 
hard  woods  (such  as  ebony,  cedar,  juniper,  cypress),  the 
lodestone,  silver,  gold,  copper  and  iron. 

It  is  no  reproach  to  say  that  such  experimenting  was 
merely  empirical.  In  the  nature  of  things  at  the  time,  it 
could  not  have  been  otherwise.1  He,  doubtless,  tried 
every  available  substance  over  and  over  again,  making 
many  an  inconclusive  test,  until  he  discovered  that  a  body 
might  appear  as  an  electric  at  one  time  and  not  at  another, 
and  that  changes  even  in  atmospheric  conditions  might 
easily  lead  to  its  entry  into  or  exclusion  from  the  electric 
category.  Nor  could  he  have  found  a  much  worse  place 
for  such  researches  than  foggy  London,  where  the  prevail- 
ing dampness  probably  many  a  time  frustrated  his  most 
careful  efforts.  At  last,  however,  he  learns  that  the  best 
electrical  effects  are  obtained  when  the  weather  is  cold,  the 
sky  clear  and  the  wind  in  the  east,  and  that  on  overcast 
days  when  the  breeze  is  southerly  the  indications  of  the 
quivering  versorium  are  not  to  be  trusted. 

The  unexpected  revelation  of  so  many  substances  par- 
taking of  the  amber  property  made  it  plain  that  the  field 
upon  which  Gilbert  was  how  entering  was  wholly  new  and 
untrodden.  <•  That  he  had  reached  its  border  through  the 
devious  ways  of  his  magnetic  hypotheses,  that  his  further 
advancement  upon  it  would  be  but  a  digression  from  his 
chosen  main  path,  that  he  had  come  to  it  in  pursuit  of  a 
special  object — all  these  considerations  are  immaterial.  To 
all  intents  and  purposes  his  advent  as  the  first  explorer 
might  have  been  owing  to  any  other  influences,  or  to  none, 
save  the  merest  arbitrary  selection  of  the  amber  attraction 
as  an  inviting  subject  for  inquiry.  Thus  we  reach  a  per- 
ception of  the  simple  fact,  clear  of  its  surroundings,  that 

1  The  history  of  the  development  of  some  modern  electric  appliances  is 
not  altogether  free  from  instances  of  a  similar  course  commending  itself 
to  the  nineteenth-century  intellect. 
20 


306         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

here  is  a  man  at  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  under- 
taking the  study  of  a  natural  occurrence  which  had  never 
before  been  systematically  studied  at  all,  and  which  no 
one  understood. 

How  did  he  set  to  work?  The  ordinary  course  of  pro- 
cedure of  the  contemporary  philosopher  would  be  the 
gathering  of  a  few  isolated  examples,  not  necessarily  cor- 
related, although  ostensibly  applicable  to  the  same  subject, 
and  the  making  of  a  speculation  or  several  speculations  of 
more  or  less  ingenuity  about  them.  Nothing  could  differ 
more  widely  from  this  than  the  strikingly  original  course 
now  followed  by  Gilbert.  Despite  the  overwhelming  au- 
thority of  Galen  and  Avicenna,  he  brushes  aside  their 
guesses  at  the  causes  of  attraction,  as  w7holly  inadequate 
to  explain,  and  then,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
modern  philosophical  thought,  he  systematically  gathers 
negative  instances  and  undertakes  affirmatively  to  discover 
and  separate  out  the  truth  by  proper  rejections  and  exclu- 
sions— something  which  "had  not  been  done  or  even  at- 
tempted," says  Bacon,  u  except  perhaps  by  Plato." 

The  attraction  of  electrics  he  finds  is  not  caused  : 

By  heat,  because  heating  alone,  even  up  to  the  flaming 
point,  will  not  produce  it. 

By  a  mode  of  operation  analogous  to  that  of  the  cupping 
glass,  as  Cardan  suggests,  because  of  the  contradictory 
character  of  Cardan's  own  explanations,  which  we  have 
already  noted. 

By  the  seeking  of  other  bodies  by  the  electric  as  food, 
because  the  attracted  body  would  then  diminish  while  the 
electric  would  grow. 

By  the  attractive  force  of  fire,  because  the  non-electrics, 
when  heated  by  fire  or  the  sun,  show  no  attraction. 

By  draught  of  displaced  air  (the  cause  assigned  by  Lu- 
cretius to  magnetic  movements),  because  that  effect  could 
not  produce  attraction  in  the  open  atmosphere. 

By  hot  objects  or  by  a  draught  of  hot  air,  for  neither  an 
iron  rod  at  white  heat  nor  a  candle-flame  brought  near  the 


THE  NATURE  OF  THE  ELECTRIC.  307 

versorium,  although  the  flame  certainly  produces  a  heated 
current,  will  cause  the  needle  to  turn. 

By  any  peculiar  property  of  amber  or  special  relation 
between  it  and  other  bodies,  because  very  many  other  sub- 
stances partake  of  the  same  electric  nature. 

By  similitude  or  likeness,  because  all  terrestrial  things, 
whether  like  or  unlike,  are  attracted  by  the  electric. 

Nor  has  the  electric  attraction  any  resemblance  to  the 
drawing  of  moisture  by  plants,  the  purging  of  a  morbid 
humor  by  a  drug,  the  removal  of  water  from  a  stoppered 
bottle  when  covered  with  a  heap  of  wheat,  or  the  mythical 
sucking  up  of  water  by  elephants'  tusks. 

Then  follows  the  list  of  solid  non-electrics  already  given, 
and  to  this  are  added  many  substances  which  either  fall  to 
pieces  or  grow  sticky  by  rubbing,  such  as  pitch,  soft  resin, 
camphor,  galbanum,  ammoniacum,  storax,  asa,  gum  ben- 
jamin and  asphalt um. 

Having  thus  cleared  the  ground  negatively,  Gilbert  pro- 
ceeds to  draw  his  affirmative  conclusion  as  to  the  physical 
nature  of  the  electric.  The  earth,  he  says,  is  made  up  of 
two  kinds  of  Matter ;  moist  and  fluid,  or  watery,  and  dry 
and  firm,  or  terrene.  Any  given  substance  consists  either 
of  both  kinds  of  Matter  or  of  a  concretion  of  either  kind. 
Amber  and  jet  are  concretions  of  water — so  are  all  shining 
gems — and  'electrics  generally  have  their  origin  in  humor 
or  watery  Matter.  This  humor  can  even  be  driven  out  by 
heat  and  discharged  as  vapor.  But  electrics  have  certain 
necessary  physical  characteristics ;  namely,  that  they  are 
firmly  concreted  so  that  they  shine  on  being  rubbed,  and 
retain  the  u appearance  and  property  of  fluid"  in  a  firm, 
solid  mass.  These  conditions  present,  they  attract  all 
bodies,  whether  humid  or  dry,  by  a  force  which  likewise 
has  its  origin  in  the  humor. 

The  next  step  is  to  account  for  this  attractive  force. 
The  attraction  of  the  magnet,  it  will  be  remembered,  he 
supposes  to  be  due  to  its  effused  Form  awakening  an  inert 
Form  in  the  drawn  iron,  so  that  the  thing  attracting  and 


308         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

the  thing  attracted  mutually  come  together  by  a  movement 
of  coition.  This  effused  Form  (field  of  force)  is  wholly  in- 
corporeal. It  is  the  animating  energy,  or  as  Thales  looked 
upon  it,  the  "soul"  of  the  magnet.1 

The  attraction  of  the  electric,  however,  he  concludes  to 
be  due  to  a  diametrically-opposite  cause.  The  force  is  not 
awakened  until  the  substance  is  rubbed,  and  then  the  sub- 
stance is  altered — that  is  to  say,  it  attains  a  moderate  heat, 
becomes  shining  or  polished,  and  finally  gives  out  an  ef- 
fluvium. This  effluvium  is  corporeal — it  is  the  original 
Matter  in  another  condition — like  a  vapor  that  is  given  off 
from  a  fluid,  or  as  if  the  body  were  dissolved  into  an  ex- 
halation. 

Now  as  to  the  qualities  of  this  effluvium,  he  says  that 
the  effect  of  moist  breath,  or  a  current  of  humid,  atmos- 
pheric air,  or  a  sheet  of  paper,  or  a  linen  cloth,  interposed 
between  the  electric  and  the  object  attracted,  is  to  choke  its 
powers.  Thus  the  electric  differs  entirely  from  the  magnet, 
which  attracts  through  any  obstacle.  Barriers  such  as  the 
foregoing  therefore  act  physically  to  stop  the  progress  of 
the  material  electric  effluvium,  while  they  are  perfectly 
transparent  to  the  immaterial,  effused,  magnetic  Form.  In 
order  to  produce  this  effluvium,  the  heat  generated  in  the 
body  itself,  not  heat  contributed  by  other  bodies,  must  act; 
and  a  gentle  and  rapid  friction  must  be  used,  not  force 
applied  violently  and  recklessly,  to  cause  the  finest  efflu- 
vium to  arise  from  a  subtle  solution  of  moisture — an  ex- 
ceedingly attenuated  humor,  much  more  rarefied  than  the 
ambient  air.  To  explain  how  such  a  humor  could  be  ob- 
tained from  so  dense  a  body  as  the  diamond,  he  instances 
odoriferous  substances  which  exhale  fragrance  for  cen- 
turies; having  in  mind,  perhaps,  the  still-persistent  odor 

1  See  Spectator,  No.  56,  May  4,  1711,  for  this  same  comparison.  Addi- 
son  describes  Albertus  Magnus  as  placing  the  lodestone  on  glowing  coals 
and  perceiving  "  a  certain  blue  vapor  to  arise  from  it  which  he  believed 
might  be  the  substantial  Form:  that  is,  in  our  West  Indian  phrase,  the 
soul  of  the  lodestone. ' ' 


THE  ELECTRIC  EFFLUVIUM.  309 

of  the  musk  which  was  mingled  with  the  mortar  in  the. 
building  of  the  Mosque  of  St.  Sophia  in  Constantinople. 

How  then  does  such  an  effluvium  attract?  Does  it  set 
the  air  in  motion,  and  is  the  air-current  followed  by  the 
attracted  bodies  ;  or  are  the  latter  directly  drawn?  If  an 
air-current  moves  the  objects,  how  can  a  minute  diamond 
of  the  size  of  a  chick-pea  pull  to  itself  so  much  air  as  to 
sweep  in  a  corpuscle  of  relatively  large  dimensions,  seeing 
that  the  air  is  drawn  by  only  a  small  portion  of  one  end 
of  the  stone?  Clearly  it  is  not  the  air  which  is  moved,  for 
then  clearly  the  attracted  body  must  stand  still  or  move 
more  slowly  before  coming  in  actual  contact  with  the 
amber,  on  account  of  the  heaping-up  of  the  air  on  the  sur- 
face and  its  rebounding  after  collision.  And,  furthermore, 
if  there  be  a  variation  in  the  character  of  the  effluvia,  if 
they  go  forth  rare  and  return  dense  (as  with  vapors),  then 
clearly  the  body  would  begin  to  move  a  little  after  the  be- 
ginning of  the  application  of  the  electric.  But — and  here 
is  the  first  statement  of  that  marvelous  speed  of  transmis- 
sion which,  in  the  telegraph  and  telephone,  annihilates 
distance  "when  rubbed  electrics  are  suddenly  applied  to 
the  pivoted  pointer — instantly  the  pointer  turns.'' 

New  ideas  now  crowd  fast  one  upon  the  other.  The  in- 
creased attractive  power  of  the  electric,  as  the  attracted 
body  approaches  it,  is  recognized;  the  motion  of  the  body 
is  seen  to  be  quickened,  "the  forces  pulling  it  being 
stronger."  At  once  Gilbert  perceives  the  similarity  in  this 
respect  between  electric  and  magnetic  attraction,  and  it 
seems  that  almost  of  necessity  he  must  be  led  to  interpret 
this  as  a  most  untoward  result,  tending  to  show  the  iden- 
tity of  the  very  phenomena  which  he  was  hoping  to  differ- 
entiate. But  note  how  he  dealt  with  it.  Not  only,  he  says, 
is  this  quickened  motion,  this  augmenting  force,  true  of 
the  magnetic  and  electric  attractions,  "but  of  all  natural 
motions."  The  great  generalization  of  the  correlation,  not 
only  of  magnetic  and  electric  attractions  with  one  another, 
but  with  the  other  forces  of  the  universe,  is  here  suggested 


310         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

— a  conception  which,  emanating  from  a  mind  of  the  six- 
teenth century,  is  an  inspiration  and  a  marvel,  v 

Then  he  says  that  if  the  attracted  body  were  moved  by 
an  air-current,  it  would  remain  in  contact  with  the  electric 
but  for  a  moment.  On  the  contrary,  that  this  attractive 
power  persists  "sometimes  for  as  long  as  five  minutes, 
especially  if  the  weather  is  fair."  Such  is  the  first  state- 
ment of  the  electric  charge. 

That  the  amber  does  not  attract  the  air,  but  the  body,  is 
shown  by  its  drawing  the  particles  on  the  surface  of  a  drop 
of  water  into  a  cone,  and  not  moving  the  whole  drop.  But 
this  landed  him  in  another  paradox;  for  how  could  the 
electric  thus  attract  water  if,  as  he  had  already  found, 
water  directly  applied  to  the  electric  destroyed  its  attract- 
ive power?  So  he  concludes  that  it  is  one  thing  to  sup- 
press the  effluvium  at  its  rise,  and  another  to  destroy  it 
after  it  is  emitted.  Hence,  he  discovers  that  to  cut  off  the 
attraction  completely  it  is  necessary  not  merely  to  inter- 
pose a  silk  texture  midway  between  the  electric  and  the 
object,  but  quickly  to  lay  it  over  the  electric  directly  after 
friction.  This  is  the  first  suggestion  of  insulation  applied 
directly  to  the  charged  conductor — the  prototype  of  the 
coating  which  covers  the  wires  which  convey  the  currents 
through  our  streets  and  dwellings,  and  prevents  leakage 
of  them  on  the  one  hand  while  guarding  us  from  their 
dangers  on  the  other. 

While  Gilbert's  experiments  often  end  in  genuine  dis- 
coveries, and  involve  conceptions  far  in  advance  of  his 
time,  it  not  infrequently  happens  that  his  deductions  and 
conclusions  are  vague,  speculative  and  obscure.  This  not 
onlyoccurs  when  (as  he  says  himself  in  his  preface),  after 
having  described  his  magnetic  experiments  and  accounted 
for  the  homogenic  parts  of  the  globe,  he  turns  to  the  gen- 
eral nature  of  the  whole  earth,  and  then  proceeds  uto 
philosophize  freely, r>  but  even  in  his  statements  as  to  what 
his  experiments  specifically  prove.  His  notion  of  electric 
effluvia  finds  its  true  limit  when  he  describes  the  emana- 


GILBERT'S  THEORY  OF  ELECTRIC  ATTRACTION.    311 

tion — very  much  as  the  Chinese  Kouopho  had  done  cen- 
turies before — as  a  breath  proceeding  from  the  electric  and 
reaching  to  the  attracted  object.  But  when  he  essays  to 
account  for  the  actual  movement  of  the  latter,  his  explana- 
tion is  based,  not  on  the  observed  behavior  of  the  electric, 
but  on  the  gravitation  of  bodies  or  bubbles  floating  in  water, 
which  he  believes  come  together  through  some  effect  of  the 
liquid  between  them.  Water,  he  considers,  is  a  moist  or 
humid  link  between  the  bodies,  and  so  is  the  electric 
effluvium,  although  the  last  is  much  rarer,  and  all  things 
come  together  because  of  humor.  He  fails  to  perceive 
that,  even  if  the  effluvia  be  regarded  as  material  arms 
which  permeate  the  air  without  moving  it  and  grasp 
straws,  etc.,  no  explanation  is  thus  afforded  why  or  how 
these  arms  draw  the  attracted  object. 

Nevertheless,  in  his  own  mind,  this  theory  was  sufficient 
for  the  differentiation  which  he  sought.  And  he  sums  this 
up  finally  by  asserting  that  electric  motion  is  one  of  matter 
toward  concretion,  while  magnetic  motion  is  that  of  ar- 
rangement and  order ;  and  thus  he  assigns  to  electric 
action  the  bringing  and  holding  together  of  the  materials 
of  the  earth,  while  to  magnetism  he  believes  the  verticity 
or  direction  of  the  globe  in  space  and  also  its  rotation  to 
be  due.  Ultimately  he  attempts  to  distinguish  the  charac- 
teristic natures  of  gravity,  magnetism  and  electricity,  while 
suggesting  their  generic  resemblance.  By  gravity,  parts 
of  the  earth  are  borne  to  it  by  natural  inclination.  By 
magnetism,  bodies  are  borne  to  one  another  mutually. 
By  electricity,  corpuscles  are  carried  to  the  electric. 

I  have  dwelt  upon  Gilbert's  theories  because  they  serve 
to  make  clear  the  originality  of  the  man  in  philosophic 
thought,  and  the  onward  momentum  which  he  gave  to 
it.  Nor,  if  we  are  to  accept  the  dicta  of  the  apostle 
of  the  inductive  method,  is  Gilbert's  merit  any  the  less 
because  later  and  wiser  generations  may  regard  his  specu- 
lations as  to  the  magnetic  relation  of  the  planets  as  mis- 
taken. "Truth,"  says  Bacon,  "emerges  more  readily 


312         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

from  error  than  confusion."  Better  a  wrong  hypothesis 
than  none  at  all. 

But  mistakes  mislead,  and  erroneous  theories  obscure 
the  vision  for  new  discovery.  Perhaps  for  this  reason, 
perhaps  because  he  did  not  regard  them  as  of  sufficient  im- 
portance, in  view  of  the  object  sought,  Gilbert  failed  to 
observe  many  electrical  facts  which  were  well  within  his 
horizon.  He  knew  nothing  of  electrical  conduction. 
Magnetic  conduction  he  realized  easily  under  the  assump- 
tion of  the  change  in  Form  occurring  throughout  an 
elongated,  magnetized  body  from  one  end  to  the  other. 
But  he  never  carried  his  electrical  effluvia,  even  in  im- 
agination, through  solids,  nor,  in  fact,  could  he  logically 
do  so  under  his  assumption  that  they  were  corporeal 
emanations  capable  of  being  dammed  by  a  sheet  of  paper. 
He  speculated  somewhat  concerning  terrestrial  electricity, 
but  only  as  a  means  of  uniting  and  holding  the  earth 
Matter.  Electric  repulsion  he  not  only  did  not  observe, 
but  he  denies  its  existence,  asserting  specifically  that 
"electrics  neither  repel  nor  propel."  Nor  is  this  notion, 
for  him,  inconsistent,  in  view  of  his  belief  that  the  plac- 
ing of  like  magnetic  poles  together  was  an  unnatural  dis- 
position of  them,  which  nature  would  proceed  to  set  right. 
Magnetic  repulsion  was  therefore  merely  a  preliminary 
rotation  of  one  magnet,  so  that  both  might  come  together 
" perfectly  according  to  nature.". 

The  practical  character  of  Gilbert's  work  is  well  indi- 
cated by  the  inventions  which  he  makes.  Thus  he  de- 
scribes the  first  filar  suspension  of  the  needle  of  an  indi- 
cating instrument,  and  even  advises  that  silk  filaments  be 
used,  twisted  differently  and  not  all  in  one  direction,  so  as 
to  eliminate  the  torsional  effect:  the  first  instrumental 
magnetometer  (an  iron  versorium),  and  incidentally  points 
out  that  the  stone  which  from  the  greatest  distance  causes 
the  needle  to  turn,  is  the  best  and  strongest.  He  first 
determined  the  directive  strength  of  a  pivoted  magnet, 
by  noting  the  frequency  and  extent  of  its  vibrations  before 


GILBERT'S  DISCOVERIES  RECAPITULATED.        313 

coming  to  rest.  His  method  of  magnetizing  iron  is  still  in 
common  use,  and  his  counsels  as  to  keeping  compass- 
needles  away  from  other  magnets,  and  of  placing  all  mag- 
nets, during  storage,  in  definite  position  with  respect  to 
the  earth's  magnetic  meridian  are  universally  followed. 

Finally  the  magnetic  rocks — those  mythical  wanderers 
from  distant  Cathay,  by  way  of  the  Red  Sea  to  the  Arctic 
Ocean — which  Fracastorio  had  relegated  to  the  hyper- 
borean regions,  and  made  them  the  sole  cause  of  the 
northing  of  the  needle— which  Matirolycus  had  deprived 
of  that  high  office,  and  imprisoned  on  a  small  northern 
island  with  no  function  save  to  disturb  the  compass — 
these,  under  Gilbert's  magic  touch,  grew  to  fill  the  entire 
globe  and  lost  their  identity  in  the  great  earth-magnet. 

Briefly  recapitulated  and  freed  from  his  astronomical 
theories,  Gilbert's  contribution  to  physical  science,  and 
to  the  philosophical  advancement  of  mankind,  was  as  fol- 
lows : 

He  was  the  first:  to  investigate  natural  phenomena 
philosophically  and  systematically,  and  by  a  true  induc- 
tive method,  for  he  interrogated  nature  by  actual  experi- 
ment and  from  the  particulars  thus  ascertained  rose  to 
correct  generalizations ;  to  recognize  electricity  (as  distin- 
guished from  magnetism)  as  a  new  natural  condition  or 
force,  and  to  study  and  name  it ;  to  extract  the  facts  and 
laws  of  magnetism  from  the  existing  mass  of  speculation, 
mysteries  and  delusions,  and  to  reduce  them  to  a  science ; 
to  suggest  the  correlation  of  gravity  and  magnetism  with 
other  natural  forces,  and  a  relationship  between  gravity, 
magnetism  and  electricity ;  to  formulate  a  definite  concep- 
tion of  the  magnetic  field  of  force,  and  to  attempt  to  show 
its  extent;  to  suggest  the  reaction  between  two  fields  of 
force,  and  mechanical  motion  of  the  inducing  bodies  result- 
ing therefrom  ;  to  recognize  that  the  earth  is  a  great  mag- 
net, capable  of  magnetizing  iron  and  iron  ore  by  induction; 
to  determine  the  magnetic  polarity  of  the  earth,  and  in  the 
directive  tendency  thereof  to  reveal  the  true  reason  for  the 


314         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

verticity  of  the  compass-needle ;  to  discover  magnetic 
screening,  conduction  and  saturation,  the  compound  mag- 
net, the  mutual  attraction  or  induction  of  lodestone  and 
iron,  the  pole-piece  or  armature,  the  effect  of  induction  on 
soft  iron,  and  magnetization  by  molecular  disturbance  ;  and 
to  discover  electrical  charge  and  its  permanence  for  a  con- 
siderable period  of  time,  and  that  it  can  be  retained  by 
covering  the  excited  body  with  certain  substances.  He 
invented  the  first  electrical  (as  distinguished  from  mag- 
netic) instrument,  the  first  electrical  indicating  device,  the 
first  magnetometer,  filar  suspension,  and  the  ordinary 
method  of  magnetization. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

AFTER  the  death  of  the  Queen,  Gilbert  was  continued 
in  his  office  of  Court  Physician  by  James  I.  He  survived 
his  royal  mistress,  however,  by  but  seven  months,  his 
decease  occurring  in  November,  1603.  The  year  was  a 
plague  year,  and  London  suffered  with  even  more  than 
usual  severity  ;  but  whether  Gilbert  succumbed  to  that 
terrible  disease  or  to  some  other  malady  is  not  known. 
His  books,  papers  and  collections,  which  he  had  be- 
queathed to  the  Royal  College  of  Physicians,  were  all 
destroyed  in  the  Great  Fire.  He  was  buried  in  Trinity 
Church,  Colchester,  where  a  tablet  to  his  memory,  bearing 
an  epitaph  far  beneath  his  deserts  and  couched  in  doubtful 
Latin,  still  remains. 

That  Gilbert  intended  the  De  Magnete  to  be  his  final 
and  greatest  work,  or  that  he  designed  submitting  his  dis- 
coveries and  his  assumptions  to  the  judgment  of  the  world 
only  through  its  pages,  is,  I  am  persuaded,  far  from  the 
truth.  The  concluding  book  of  his  treatise  is  at  best  but 
an  outline  of  % his  cosmical  theories;  and,  as  the  establish- 
ment of  these  was  his  chief  aim,  it  is  hardly  supposable 
that  he  would  have  contented  himself  with  so  brief  a  state- 
ment of  conclusions  after  so  many  years  of  experiment  and 
study.  The  volume  was  edited  and  supervised  while  in 
press  by  Edward  Wright,  who  at  the  time  was  a  lecturer  on 
Navigation  for  the  East  India  Company,1  and  who  takes 
occasion  in  the  prefatory  address  to  praise  Gilberts  sup- 
posed discoveries  concerning  dip,  compass  variation  and 
the  finding  of  a  ship's  position  at  sea ;  so  that  it  seems 
possible  that  Wright,  because  of  his  belief  in  the  import- 

1  Ridley:  Magneticall  Animadversions,  London,  1617. 

(315) 


31 6         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

ance  of  these  practical  achievements,  induced  Gilbert  to 
give  the  work  to  the  world  before  it  had  reached  comple- 
tion and  with  its  partst  disproportioned.  That  Gilbert 
designed  making  additions  to  it  is  proved  by  the  single 
letter  written  by  him  now  known  to  exist,  which  Dr. 
William  Barlowe,  Archdeacon  of  Salisbury,  appends  as  a 
sort  of  testimonial  to  his  own  little  essay  on  the  magnet, 
which  appeared  in  1613.  In  this  letter,  which  was  prob- 
ably written  early  in  1602,  Gilbert  speaks  of  adjoining  "an 
appendix  of  six  or  eight  sheets  of  paper  to  the  book  after 
a  while,"  which  was  to  be  descriptive  of  some  new  inven- 
tions ;  and  probably  of  two  instruments  for  finding  latitude 
at  sea,  which  his  friend,  Thomas  Blondeville,  published 
and  ascribes  to  him  in  a  curious  astronomical  treatise  en- 
titled "the  theoriques  of  the  Seven  Planets,"  which  he 
produced  in  the  last-named  year.  At  all  events,  this  ad- 
dition to  the  De  Magnete  never  was  made;  and  Gilbert 
appears  to  have  devoted  himself  to  the  preparation  of  a  more 
elaborate  exposition  of  his  cosmical  theories  than  that 
which  terminates  the  earlier  work.  This  he  left,  however, 
in  a  fragmentary  state,  only  two  books  or  divisions  having 
been  written;  or,  more  properly  speaking,  sketched,  for  they 
show  all  the  marks  indicative  of  an  intention  to  amplify  at 
some  future  time.  They  probably  bear  a  similar  relation 
to  the  finished  work  as  it  would  have  been,  as  the  two 
books  of  the  Advancement  of  Learning  to  the  final  De 
Augmentis  of  Francis  Bacon.  This  epitome,  with  the 
title-page  belonging  to  it,  forms  the  first  part  of  the  post- 
humous volume  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  and  is 
called  "A  new  philosophy  of  our  sublunary  world;"  its 
contents  being  thus  clearly  distinguished  in  character  from 
those  of  the  De  Magnete,  which  bears  the  general  title  of 
UA  new  physiology  of  the  magnet,  magnetic  bodies  and 
of  the  great  magnet,  the  earth."  The  later  work  was 
manifestly  intended  to  supplant  existing  cosmologies,  and 
to  inculcate  the  philosophy  of  the  world's  place  in  the 
universe  which  Gilbert  believed  that  he  had  developed ; 


FRANCIS   BACON.  317 

the  De  Magnate,  on  the  other  hand,  contains  the  "certain 
experiments  and  demonstrated  arguments,"  upon  which 
the  philosophy  is  based. 

Appended  to  the  new  philosophy,  is  a  treatise  on 
meteorology  "contra  Aristotelem  ;"  but  this  seems  to  be 
a  distinct  production,  and  not  necessarily  related  to  the 
first-named  treatise. 

I  have  referred  somewhat  at  length  to  this  posthumous 
work  of  Gilbert,  which  is  now  a  literary  rarity,  because 
it  has  a  remarkable  history  of  its  own,  and  because  it 
forms  the  connecting  link,  so  to  speak,  between  Gilbert 
and  Bacon. 


It  is  but  natural  that  the  world  should  turn  to  the  great 
English  philosopher  for  the  most  authoritative  of  all  con- 
temporary estimates  and  opinions  concerning  the  man 
whose  fame  waned  amid  his  immediate  posterity,  and 
burst  into  brighter  eifulgence  than  ever  three  centuries 
after  his  death.  With  even  keener  expectancy  does  it 
seek  to  know  how,  at  the  hands  of  the  apostle  of  the 
advancement  of  science,  this  new  science  of  the  magnet 
and  of  the  amber  found  its  impetus  and  promotion.  I 
have  yet  to  encounter  any  expressed  opinion  as  to  the 
manner  in  which  Bacon  dealt  with  Gilbert,  which  does 
not  lay  accusations  at  the  door  of  the  former,  ranging 
all  the  way  from  a  simple  imputation  of  failure  to  under- 
stand Gilbert's  magnetic  and  electric  discoveries,  up  to 
direct  charges  of  jealousy,  malice  and  injustice  ;  the  char- 
acteristic common  to  all,  however,  being  an  absence  of 
explanation  of  rational  motive,  so  that  one  might  well 
draw  from  them  inferences  not  altogether  consistent  with 
the  usual  conception  of  Bacon's  mental  strength. 

Throughout  all  of  Bacon's  philosophical  writings  there 
is  no  contemporary  philosopher  more  frequently  mentioned 
than  is  Gilbert;  nor  one  for  whose  opinions  Bacon  shows 
any  kindred  respect.  Even  where  he  disputes  and  con- 


318         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

deiniis  Gilbert's  conclusions,  he  leaves  it  in  no  doubt  that 
they  belong  to  Gilbert,  and  not  to  some  Anonymous,  for 
he  writes  Gilbert's  name  beside  them.  Nor  does  he  satisfy 
himself  with  a  mere  expression  of  dissent,  or  even  with  a 
single  bitter  outburst  of  condemnation;  but  he  comes  back 
again  and  again,  year  after  year,  in  his  early  works  and 
in  those  written  near  the  end  of  his  life,  always  answering 
Gilbert,  praising  Gilbert,  refuting  Gilbert,  condemning 
Gilbert — not  Fracastorio,  nor  Cardan,  nor  Bruno,  but 
Gilbert,  "our  countryman." 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  tell  the  history  of  the  book  which, 
as  I  have  said,  forms  a  connecting  link  between  Gilbert 
and  Bacon,  and  afterwards  to  examine  the  nature  of  the 
opinions  which  Bacon  expresses  regarding  Gilbert's  dis- 
coveries and  hypotheses.  In  this  way  I  shall  endeavor  to 
reach  an  understanding  of  Bacon's  views  and  his  reasons 
therefor,  on  which,  perhaps,  an  impartial  judgment  of  his 
course  may  be  founded;  and  this,  if  throwing  no  new  light 
on  his  character,  may  serve  to  heighten  that  with  which 
some  of  its  many  sides  are  already  illuminated.  In  this 
way  also  we  shall  see  the  working  of  one  of  the  forces 
which  for  the  time,  so  far  from  advancing  the  new  science, 
tended  rather  to  keep  it  in  the  slough  of  delusions  and  de- 
ceptions from  which  it  was  struggling  to  emerge. 

The  "New  Philosophy"  of  Gilbert  came  to  be  published 
half  a  century  after  his  death  in  the  following  curious  cir- 
cumstances. Within  the  period  of  apparently  some  two 
years  after  his  demise,  William  Gilbert,  of  Mel  ford,  his 
elder  brother,  bearing,  oddly  enough,  the  same  name 
(unec  sine  causa  ad  rationes  economicas  spectante,"  says  a 
later  editor)  found,  among  Gilbert's  scattered  papers,  the 
fragmentary  New  Philosophy  and  the  Meteorology.  These 
(as  he  says,  being  governed  by  fraternal  affection,  as  well 
as  by  an  appreciation  of  the  importance  of  the  arguments 
advanced,  whereof  he  felt  unwilling  to  deprive  the  world), 
he  arranged,  caused  to  be  translated  into  Latin,  and  pre- 
fixed to  them  a  dedication  to  Henry,  Prince  of  Wales,  who 


GILBERT'S  PHILOSOPHIA  NOVA.  319 

died  in  1612.  That  lie  intended  to  publish  the  book  is 
clear;  nevertheless,  he  departed,  as  its  author  had  done, 
with  his  purpose  unfulfilled. 

In  1626  Bacon  succumbed  to  the  results  of  his  ill-timed 
experiment  in  preserving  chickens  with  snow,  and  be- 
queathed all  his  papers — saving  his  collection  of  speeches 
and  letters — to  his  literary  executors,  Sir  John  Constable 
and  William  Bosvile — the  latter  better  known  as  Sir  Will- 
iam Bos  well,  sometime  British  Agent  with  the  States  of 
the  United  Provinces.  The  Bacon  manuscripts  were  sent  to 
Boswell's  residence  at  the  Hague,  and  there  lay  until  Bos- 
well,  who  died  in  1647,  confided  them  to  the  editorial  care 
of  Isaac  Gruter,  who  culled  from  them  nineteen  essays  and 
fragments,  including  the  Cogitata  et  Visa,  the  Descriptio 
Globo  Intellectualis,  Thema  Coeli  and  others,  and  pub- 
lished them  all  together  in  1653.  Among  the  papers 
which  thus  came  into  his  hands,  Gruter  found  the  two 
manuscripts  of  William  Gilbert,  of  Colchester,  which  Wil- 
liam Gilbert,  of  Melford,  had  prepared,  and  these  he  edited 
and  issued  as  before  stated,  in  1651. * 

Gruter  is  unable  to  decide  whether  the  treatises,  thus 
brought  to  light,  were  written  before  or  after  the  De  Mag- 
nete.  Mr.  James  Spedding,  the  learned  biographer  of 
Bacon,  is  of  opinion  that  they  were  produced  before  1604 
uas  the  new  star  of  1572  is  mentioned  by  itself,  whereas 
later  writers,  as  Bacon  and  Galileo,  always  couple  it  with 
the  star  in  Ophiuchus  first  seen  in  i6c>4;"2  and  also  con- 
jectures that  they  are  of  later  date  than  1600,  on  the  some- 
what inconclusive  authority  of  Bacon's  remark3  concerning 
Gilbert  as  one.  who,  "having  employed  himself  most  as- 
siduously in  the  consideration  of  the  magnet,  immediately 
established  a  system  of  philosophy  to  coincide  with  his 
favorite  pursuit. "  When  the  Meteorology  was  written  is 

JThe  Works  of  Francis  Bacon,  ed.  by  Spedding,  Ellis  and  Heath,  Vol. 
II.,  196,  Vol.  V.,  187,  Boston,  i8b2. 
2  Ibid. 
8Novuni  Organum,  i.,  5^. 


320         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

perhaps  doubtful,  but  the  internal  evidence  of  the  Philos- 
ophia  Nova  (presupposing,  as  its  contents  plainly  do,  a 
knowledge  on  the  part  of  the  reader  not  only  of  the  mag- 
netic but  of  the  electric  phenomena  recorded  in  the  De 
Magnete),  leaves  it,  I  think,  beyond  question  that  it  was 
prepared  after  the  writing,  if  not  after  the  publication 
of  the  last-named  work. 

But  the  exact  time  of  its  production  is  of  little  moment. 
The  significant  fact  lies  in  the  possession  of  the  manu- 
scripts by  Bacon  during  his  lifetime.  He  studied  them, 
he  knew  their  contents.  And  in  those  great  Monuments 
wherein  he  has  invoked  for  his  own  fame  the  judgment  of 
the  next  age,  he  attacks  and  condemns  over  and  over 
again  the  opinions  of  a  man  who  could  neither  speak  for 
himself,  being  in  his  grave,  nor  be  spoken  for  by  the  only 
written  words  wherein  he  had  set  them  forth,  and  which, 
in  the  cabinet  of  my  L,ord  Verulam,  were  as  effectually 
silenced  and  entombed.  The  advocates  of  Bacon,  who  can 
reconcile  his  consignment  of  Peacham  to  the  rack  with  the 
principles  of  natural  law  and  the  rights  of  the  citizen 
which  he  so  eloquently  defended,  may  perhaps  see  in  his 
dealing  with  the  dead  Gilbert's  manuscripts  no  evidence 
of  the  meanness  and  baseness,  of  which  others  have  pro- 
fessed to  find  in  his  character  abundant  proof.  But  pos- 
sibly it  may  calf  for  still  further  partisan  ingenuity  to 
discover  the  consistency  of  his  suppression  of  this  record 
of  conclusions  from  an  inductive  research,  and  his  severe 
strictures  upon  its  author,  with  his  simultaneous  blazoning 
to  the  world  of  the  value  of  the  inductive  method  as  the 
only  means  of  discovering  physical  truth,  and  "hitherto 
untried." 

The  very  persistence  of  his  censure  of  Gilbert  is  of 
itself  remarkable.  Unlike  the  arraignment  of  Aristotle 
("pessimus  sophista"),  or  Galen  ("canicula  et  pestis"), 
or  Agrippa  ("trivial is  scurra"),  or  Paracelsus  ("asinorum 
adoptiva")  in  the  writings  of  his  youth,  which  gave  place 
to  much  more  tempered  expressions  in  those  of  his  maturer 


BACON   AND   GILBERT.  321 

years,  the  vigor  and  severity  of  the  adverse  judgments 
which  he  passes  upon  Gilbert's  theories  remained  un- 
abated from  the  beginning  of  his  career  to  the  end. 

But  to  infer  from  the  foregoing  that  Bacon's  attitude 
toward  Gilbert's  achievements  is  always  one  of  unquali- 
fied disapproval,  is  gravely  to  err.  While  the  instances 
where  he  bestows  praise  are  few,  there  are  several  in 
which  he  tacitly  accepts  the  truth  of  Gilbert's  discover- 
ies; and  if  to  this  be  added  the  further  fact  that  toward  one 
— and  to  us  the  most  important — branch  of  these  his  real 
relation  is  substantially  that  of  a  passive  disciple,  it  be- 
comes evident  that  any  correct  conclusion  as  to  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  his  opinions  must  be  based  on  careful 
discrimination  between  the  matters  to  which  he,  at  differ- 
ent times,  refers.  Between  these,  it  is  difficult  to  draw 
any  precise  dividing  line  which  will  enable  us  to  say  that 
with  those  on  one  side  he  wholly  agrees,  while  he  as  com- 
pletely disagrees  with  those  on  the  other.  No  two  cate- 
gories can  be  framed  in  this  respect  which  will  not  include 
serious  exceptions.  But,  viewing  all  broadly,  it  will  be 
found  that  when  he  acquiesces,  it  is  in  favor  of  Gilbert's 
direct  conclusions  from  experiment ;  while  on  the  other 
hand  he  seldom  fails  to  condemn  Gilbert's  cosmical  hypoth- 
eses and  speculations.  For  Gilbert's  chief  effort,  the 
attempt  to  base  cosmical  theories  upon  the  outcome  of 
magnetic  experiment,  his  censure  is  without  qualification  ; 
to  that,  every  shaft  of  ridicule  and  disparagement  is  di- 
rected— it  is  vain,  false,  absurd,  wrong  in  every  particular 
— it  is  a  generalization  from  wholly  insufficient  data — an 
attempt  to  build  a  ship  from  material  not  enough  to  pro- 
vide the  rowing-pins  of  a  boat. 

With  this  differentiation  as  a  guide,  we  can  now  sep- 
arate Bacon's  opinions  regarding  Gilbert's  magnetic  and 
electric  discoveries — which  possess  for  us  the  more  vital 
interest — from  those  which  he  formulates  with  reference 
to  the  broader,  universal  deductions. 

He  agrees  with  Gilbert  in  classing  the  lodestone  as 
21 


322         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

among  the  things  which  work  by  the  universal  configura- 
tion and  sympathy  of  the  world — by  the  primitive  nature 
of  matter  and  the  seeds  of  things — "by  consent  with  the 
globe  of  the  earth. "  Then,  still  following,  he  connects 
magnetism  and  gravity,  the  latter  differing  only  in  being 
by  consent  "of  dense  bodies"  with  the  globe  of  the  earth, 
and  the  magnetic  motion  "drawing  both  the  iron  to  the 
magnet  and  heavy  bodies  to  the  globe."  He  recognizes 
the  production  of  the  field  of  force;  "immaterial  virtues 
which  pass  thnnigh  all  mediums  yet  at  determinate  dis- 
tances."2 There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  signification  which 
he  attaches  to  the  last  phrase,  for  he  asks  himself  the 
question  "What  may  be  distance?"  and  answers  it  almost 
in  Gilbert's  words  "that  which  is  not  inaptly  termed,  orb 
of  virtue, or  activity."3 

Gilbert's  notion  of  the  gradual  diminution  of  the  earth's 
attraction  as  bodies  recede,  he  expressly  affirms,  adding 
that  the  downward  motion  "rises  from  no  other  appetite 
of  bodies  than  that  of  uniting  and  collecting  themselves  to 
the  earth  (which  is  a  mass  of  bodies  of  the  same  nature 
with  them),  and  is  confined  within  the  orb  of  its  own 
virtue."4  His  concurrence  in  Gilbert's  idea  of  the  earth's 
verticity  takes  the  following,  even  cordial,  form  :  "Now 
the  diligence  of  Gilbert  has  discovered  for  us  most  truly 
that  all  earth  and  every  nature  (which  we  call  terrestrial) 
that  is  not  supple  but  rigid,  and  as  he  himself  calls  it 
robust,  has  a  direction  or  verticity,  latent  indeed,  yet  re- 
vealing itself  in  many  exquisite  experiments  north  and 
south."5  And  again  he  agrees  with  Gilbert,  whom  he 
commends  as  having  well  observed  it,  that  magnetic  repul- 
sion is  not  strictly  an  avoidance,  but  a  conformity  or 
attraction  to  a  more  convenient  situation.6 

*Nat.  Hist.,  cent,  x,  904,  et  seq.  2Nov.  Org.,  B.  ii,  37. 

8  De  Augmentis,  B.  iii,  iv. 

4Des.  Globi  Intellect.     Nov.  Organum,  B.  ii,  35. 

6De  Fluxu  et  Refluxu  Maris.  6Nov.  Org.,  B.  ii,  48. 


BACON   AND   GILBERT.  323 

But  where  an  acceptance  of  any  general  theory  advanced 
by  Gilbert  might  lead,  even  indirectly,  to  a  tolerance  of  the 
Copernican  doctrine,  which  Bacon  regarded  as  extravagant 
and  claimed  to  be  able  to  demonstrate  as  most  false,1  he  is 
willing  to  go  to  great,  if  not  illogical  lengths,  in  his  de- 
nials. He  limits  his  sweeping  endorsement  of  Gilbert's 
verticity  doctrine  by  confining  the  assertion  "to  the  ex- 
terior concretions  about  the  surface  of  the  earth  and  not 
extending  it  to  the  interior;"  and  then  dissents  from 
Gilbert's  discovery  that  the  earth  is  a  magnet,  which  he 
ridicules  as  "hastily  taken  up  from  a  very  light  fancy."2 
But  observe  the  over-strained  argument  with  which  he 
supports  this  contrary  opinion:  "It  is  impossible  that 
things  in  the  interior  of  the  earth  can  be  like  any  sub- 
stance exposed  to  the  eye  of  man  ;  for  with  us  all  things 
are  relaxed,  wrought  upon  and  softened  by  the  sun  and 
heavenly  bodies,  so  that  they  cannot  correspond  to  things 
situated  in  a  place  where  such  a  power  does  not  penetrate." 
As  Gilbert  expressly  says  that  lodestones  vary  in  all 
degrees  in  purity,  and  hence  in  efficiency,  through  the 
primordial  matter  becoming  more  or  less  combined  with 
other  substances,  it  is  evident  that  Bacon's  answer  to  Gil- 
bert is  far  from  pertinent.  Even  more  labored  is  his 
endeavor  to  avoid  the  conclusion  of  the  earth's  rotation, 
which  he  sees  is  liable  to  follow  the  admission  of  the  ver- 
ticity doctrine.  "The  upper  incrustations  or  concretions 
of  the  earth,"  and  not  the  whole  sphere,  he  explains, 
"appear  to  correspond  to  the  rotations  of  the  heaven,  air 
and  water,  as  far  as  consistent  and  determinate  bodies  can 
correspond  to  liquids  and  fluids  ;  that  is,  not  that  they 
revolve  upon  poles,  but  that  they  direct  and  turn  them- 
selves upon  poles  ...  so  that  the  direction  and  verticity 
of  the  poles  in  rigid  bodies  is  the  same  thing  as  revolving 
upon  the  poles  in  fluid,"  which  may  be  left  without  fur- 
ther comment  than  that  the  most  determined  advocate 
of  the  Chancellor  will  probably  find  in  it  no  higher  evi- 

JDe  Aug.,  B.  iii,  c.  iv.  2De  Fluxu  et  Refluxu  Maris. 


324         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

deuce  of  genius  than  such  as  may  attend  an  imaginable 
premonition  of  the  relatively  recent  discovery  of  the  flow 
of  solids.  Bacon's  own  opinion  of  it,  as  an  argument,  may 
perhaps  be  gathered  from  the  following  from  the  Novum 
Organum  :  "But  if  the  motion  of  the  earth  from  west  to 
east  be  allowed,  the  same  question  (why  bodies  appear  to 
desire  peculiar  situations)  may  be  put;  for  it  must  also  re- 
volve around  certain  poles,  and  why  should  they  be  placed 
where  they  are  rather  than  elsewhere?  The  polarity  and 
variation  of  the  needle  come  under  our  present  head."1 

Bacon's  inefficiency  in  practical  experimentation  is  so 
well  known,  that  it  need  not  be  dwelt  upon  here.  His 
little  treatise  of  Inquiry  on  the  Magnet  is  mainly  composed 
of  efforts  to  answer  the  questions  which  he  suggests  in  the 
De  Augmentis  as  subjects  for  experiment.  They  involve 
no  special  ingenuity,  nor  reveal  any  important  discoveries. 
The  principal  conclusions  are  that  the  lodestone  attracts 
steel-filings  or  its  own  dust  as  well  as  it  does  iron  filings; 
a  re  verification  of  Gilbert's  discovery  of  the  effect  of  the 
iron  pole-piece;  that  rubbing  a  magnet  (uas  we  do  amber") 
or  heating  it,  does  not  increase  its  powers,  and  that  the 
magnet  attracts  iron  at  equal  distances  through  water, 
wine,  air  and  oil.  Perhaps  the  most  interesting  proceed- 
ing of  all  is  the  taking  of  a  magnet  to  the  top  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral  in  London  to  see  whether  its  power  became  di- 
minished in  consequence  of  its  distance  from  the  ground: 
another  instance  of  the  possibility  of  interconnection  of 
gravity  and  magnetism  making  itself  felt. 

Despite  Gilbert's  electrical  discoveries  having  been 
made  in  the  course  of  a  digression,  it  is  clear  that  Bacon 
had  by  no  means  failed  to  perceive  their  novelty  and  im- 
portance. Among  the  u  Physiological  Remains"  gathered 
by  Tenison  in  1679 — the  residue  of  the  collection  of  Nat- 
ural History  notes  and  memoranda  which  Rawley  had  pre- 
viously winnowed — there  is  a  so-called  catalogue  of  bodies 
attractive  and  non-attractive,  written  partly  in  English 
'Nov.  Org.,  B.  ii,  48. 


BACON   ON  THE  ELECTRICS.  325 

and  partly  in  Latin,  which  it  has  been  assumed,  not  infre- 
quently, sets  forth  a  series  of  electrical  discoveries  and  ex- 
periments made  by  Bacon  himself.  The  entire  production, 
however,  is  merely  an  epitome  of  the  famous  second  chap- 
ter in  Gilbert's  De  Magnete,  wherein  the  electrical  mat- 
ters are  contained;  no  material  fact  being  wanting,  and 
the  various  facts  being  arranged  in  nearly  the  same  order 
in  which  Gilbert  presents  them. 

It  is  not  an  unreasonable  inference  that  Bacon  prepared 
this  synopsis  merely  for  convenience,  intending  at  some 
future  time  to  take  up  the  subject  of  electrics  for  study; 
and  this  supposition  gains  support  from  his  curt  dismissal 
of  the  topic  in  his  Natural  History,1  where  he  begins  a 
paragraph  as  if  he  were  about  to  discuss  "emissions  which 
cause  attraction  of  certain  bodies  at  a  distance,"  but  does 
nothing  beyond  excepting  the  lodestone  from  the  category 
and  noting  his  intention  of  considering  "the  drawing  of 
amber  and  jet  and  other  electric  bodies "  besides  sundry 
other  attractions  under  another  title,  which  he  appears 
never  to  have  done.  But  if  "imitation  is  the  sincerest 
flattery,"  this  is  a  shining  example  of  it,  which  may  justify 
the  suggestion  already  made  that  in  respect  to  this  part  of 
Gilbert's  contribution  to  the  world's  knowledge  Bacon's 
attitude  is  that  of  a  disciple.  He  adds  nothing  to  Gilbert's 
results — he  does  not  dispute  a  single  physical  happening. 
But  when  he  comes  to  the  consideration  of  Gilbert's  hy- 
pothesis of  electrical  action  based  on  these  experiments, 
then  his  inclination  to  dispute  conclusions  asserts  itself. 
He  will  not  accept  Gilbert's  assumption  of  effluvia — purely 
physical  notion  as  it  is.  He  prefers  to  go  back  to  anti- 
quity, and  exhume  one  of  those  brain-spun  abstractions, 
which  it  is  his  delight  to  condemn. 

"The  electrical  operation,  of  which  Gilbert  and  others 
after  him  have  told  so  many  fables,  is  none  other,"  he 
avers,  "than  an  appetite  of  the  body  excited  by  light  fric- 
tion which  does  not  well  tolerate  the  air,  but  prefers  any- 

'Nat.  Hist.,  cent,  x.,  906. 


326          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

thing  tangible  which  it  can  find  near  by."  No  induction, 
and  least  of  all,  one  based  on  precise  rules,  ever  brought 
him  to  this  conclusion.  No  conclusion  ever  contained,  or 
was  likely  to  lead  to  the  acquirement  of  less  of  the  "fruit" 
which  the  inductive  method  aimed  to  secure.  It  is  easier 
to  perceive  in  the  assertion  a  rediictio  ad  absurdum  and  a 
satire,  than  the  inconsistency  which  otherwise  obtrudes 
itself.  He  denied  Gilbert's  effluvia,  and  pointed  his  denial 
by  suggesting,  as  a  truer  hypothesis,  the  notion  of  the 
magnetic  appetite,  which,  none  better  than  he  knew, 
owed  its  existence  to  nothing  but  "the  sterile  exuber- 
ance" of  ancient  thought. 

Macaulay  likens  the  speculations  of  the  old  world  in  the 
realm  of  natural  philosophy  to  ploughing,  harrowing, 
reaping  and  threshing,  with  no  better  result  than  to  fill 
the  garners  with  smut  and  stubble.  Bacon  is  fond  of  the 
parable  of  the  farmer  who  directed  his  sons  to  dig  in  the 
vineyard  for  hidden  treasure — the  gold  not  being  found, 
but  the  cultivation  vastly  increasing  the  yield  of  the  vines. 

His  opinion  of  Gilbert's  work  accords  with  Macaulay 's 
analogy,  for  he  believed  that  it  yielded  no  valuable  har- 
vest— on  the  other  hand  it  falls  within  his  favorite  alle- 
gory, for  Gilbert's  digging — the  experiments  on  the  mag- 
net and  the  amber — was  in  itself  admittedly  good  and 
valuable.  It  was  to  him  as  if  Gilbert  had  ploughed  and 
harrowed  to  improve  soil  which  had  yielded,  not  grain, 
but  weeds — not  the  vine  loaded  with  bursting  clusters,  but 
the  malignant  creeper  luxuriant  with  poisonous  foliage. 
To  Bacon  the  Copernican  theory  was  a  pestilent  thing. 
Gilbert's  tillage  of  the  land  could  make  it  none  the  less 
noxious — rather  the  contrary  :  far  less  could  he  convert  it 
into  the  fruitful  vine.  Nor,  to  change  the  figure,  could 
the  stones  which  Gilbert  quarried  suffice  for  a  monument 
reaching  to  the  skies.  His  pile  ended  in  clouds — not  in 
the  heavens. 

In  distinguishing  between  Gilbert's  physical  discoveries 
and  his  cosmical  speculations,  Bacon  regards  the  latter  as 


BACON   AND   GILBERT.  327 

of  the  higher  import;  and,  in  so  doing,  follows  in  the 
steps  of  Gilbert  himself.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
Gilbert's  aim  was  not  primarily  the  making  of  electrical 
and  magnetic  discoveries,  but  the  establishment,  through 
such  means,  of  a  great  theory  of  the  physical  structure  of 
the  universe ;  that  the  actual  facts  proved  by  these  experi- 
ments and  Gilbert's  application  of  these  facts  to  support 
his  hypotheses,  were  two  entirely  different  matters.  The 
last  we  have  already  seen  to  be  in  many  particulars  incon- 
clusive and  obscure.  Nor  was  the  general  acceptance  of 
the  Copernican  theory  in  any  wise  promoted  by  Gilbert's 
arguments ;  nor  do  the  latter  enter  into  any  modern  astro- 
physical  doctrine ;  nor  does  any  one  maintain  them  now. 
What  other  position  toward  them  could  Bacon  have  taken, 
convinced,  moreover,  as  he  was  of  the  error  of  the  helio- 
centric theory,  than  that  which  he  assumed?  A  false  doc- 
trine bolstered  by  wrong  interpretations  of  experiments 
cannot  be  made  true  in  the  mind  of  any  rational  being  so 
believing,  by  establishing  the  accuracy  of  the  experiments 
per  se. 

That  Bacon  saw  in  Gilbert's  hypotheses  a  flagrant  ex- 
ample of  the  very  errors  resulting  from  incorrect  gener- 
alizations, away  from  which  he  was  seeking  to  lead  the 
world,  furnishes  a  probable  reason  both  for  the  severity  of 
his  censure  and  the  persistence  with  which  he  repeated  it. 
To  call  Gilbert  an  empiric  and  a  maker  of  fables,  was 
merely  to  indulge  in  a  style  of  vituperation  in  which  he 
was  far  excelled  in  point  of  picturesqueness,  vigor  and 
fecundity  by  Gilbert  himself,  and  besides  to  follow  a  fash- 
ion of  the  times,  whereof  the  irascible  daughter  of  King 
Henry  was  no  weak  exemplar.  But  Bacon's  strictures 
were  rarely  in  the  form  of  hasty  invective.  They  were 
painstaking — and  years  often  elapsed  before  he  found  ex- 
pressions for  them  which  seemed  to  him  entirely  satis- 
factory and  adequate.  Of  this  peculiarity,  two  prominent 
instances  are  worth  noting  as  typical. 

In  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  published  in  1605,  he 


328          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

says  that  "the  Alchemists  have  made  a  philosophy  out  of 
a  few  experiments  of  the  furnace,  and  Gilbert,  our  country- 
man, hath  made  a  philosophy  out  of  observations  of  the 
lodestoue  " — this  being  in  illustration  of  the  proneness  of 
humanity  to  generalize  upon  insufficient  or  incomplete 
data.  The  same  statement  is  repeated  in  the  Novum  Or- 
ganum,  published  fifteen  years  later,  and  in  the  De  Aug- 
mentis  (1623).  And,  finally,  in  the  History  of  Heavy  and 
Light  Bodies,  which  did  not  appear  until  after  Bacon's 
death,  it  takes  a  more  severe  form,  declaring  that  Gilbert 
"has  himself  become  a  magnet;  that  is,  he  has  ascribed  too 
many  things  to  that  force  and  built  a  ship  out  of  a  shell." 
Apparently,  it  took  Bacon  as  long  to  reach  a  final  formula- 
tion of  this  judgment  as  it  did  Gilbert  to  make  all  the 
experiments  in  the  De  Magnete. 

Another  even  more  curious  example  forms  a  part  of  his 
attack  on  Gilbert,  especially  as  a  Copernican.  In  the  Ad- 
vancement of  Learning,  he  speaks  of  the  establishment  of 
a  Calendar  of  Sects  of  Philosophy,  in  which  he  proposes  the 
setting  down  of  the  philosophy  of  "Gilbert,  our  country- 
man, who  revived,  with  some  alterations  and  demonstra- 
tions, the  opinions  of  Xenophanes."  The  opinions  of 
Xenophanes,  who  was  the  founder  of  the  Eleatic  school  of 
Greek  philosophy,  concerning  astronomy,  were  extravagant 
in  extreme ;  but,  as  they  included  a  wild  speculation  in- 
volving terrestrial  rotation,  he  is  commonly  mentioned 
among  the  ancient  prototypes  of  Copernicus.  Bacon's 
statement,  of  course,  had  no  foundation  in  fact,  and  was 
derisively  intended.  This  is  repeated  with  odd  variations. 
In  the  Cogitata  et  Visa,  we  are  told  that  "our  countryman 
Gilbert,"  in  order  that  he  might  examine  the  nature  of  the 
magnet,  constantly  sought,  with  great  firmness,  constancy 
of  judgment  and  many  experiments,  u  to  start  new  sects  in 
natural  philosophy ;  nor  did  he  hesitate  to  turn  into 
ridicule  the  name  of  Xenophanes,  to  whose  opinions  he 
himself  inclined."  In  the  Redargutio  Philosophorum  this 
is  changed  to  read  that  he  turned  the  name  of  Xenophanes 


BACON   AND   GILBERT.  329 

into  Xeuomanes,  an  allusion  which  finds  its  explanation 
in  the  History  of  Life  and  Death,  wherein  Bacon  describes 
the  Greek  as  "a  man  who  wandered  no  less  in  his  mind 
than  in  his  body,  so  that,  in  consequence  of  his  opinions, 
his  name  was  changed  from  Xenophanes  to  Xenomanes." 
But  in  the  De  Augmentis,  in  a  paragraph  similar  to  that 
originally  in  the  Advancement  of  Learning,  Xenophanes 
is  dropped  out  of  sight,  and  Gilbert  is  charged  with  reviv- 
ing the  doctrines  of  Philolaus.  The  strength  of  the  judg- 
ment which,  while  persisting  over  twenty  years,  can  exer- 
cise such  a  keen  discrimination  is  sufficiently  apparent. 

The  Philosophia  Nova  of  Gilbert  contains,  as  I  have 
already  pointed  out,  the  most  comprehensive  statement  of 
his  cosmical  and  astronomical  views.  The  Meteorologia 
deals  more  particularly  with  natural  phenomena,  such  as 
comets,  the  winds  and  tides,  and  the  rainbow.  To  both 
of  these  works  Bacon  often  refers.  Thus,  in  the  Descrip- 
tio  Globo  Intellectually  he  mentions  Gilbert's  notions  of 
the  revolution  of  the  stars,  the  vacuum  in  the  interstellar 
space,  the  scattering  of  opaque  globes  through  the  heavens, 
and,  with  especial  approval,  his  mapping  of  the  moon  and 
his  conceptions  concerning  gravity.  In  his  History  of  the 
Winds  he  draws  so  freely  upon  Gilbert's  chapters  on  the 
same  subject  that  Gruter  notes  upon  the  margins  of  the 
Meteorologia  the  places  whence  he  has  taken  his  extracts. 
In  fact,  even  in  the  absence  of  knowledge  of  the  discovery 
of  the  Gilbert  manuscripts  among  Bacon's  literary  remains, 
there  is  abundant  evidence  to  show  that  he  was  at  least  one 
of  the  distinguished  men  whom  Gruter  says  had  access  to 
Gilbert's  writing  in  its  unpublished  form. 

It  is  not  necessary  for  the  purpose  of  this  work  to  extend 
this  review  of  the  relations  of  Bacon  and  Gilbert  beyond 
the  present  limit.  That  Bacon  recognized  Gilbert's  emi- 
nence as  a  philosopher  and  as  a  discoverer  is  clear.  He 
certainly  regarded  him  in  the  light  of  u  a  foeman  worthy 
of  his  steel."  That  he  was  governed  in  his  censure  by 
personal  animosity  it  is  needless  to  assume,  in  view  of  the 


330          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

existence  of  other  and  wholly  impersonal  considerations 
of  ample  strength.  His  suppression  of  Gilbert's  manu- 
script is  a  part  of  that  "checkered  spectacle  of  so  much 
jrlory  and  so  much  shame"  which  makes  up  his  life. 

As  to  the  statement  that  is  often  made  that  Gilbert  prac- 
ticed the  inductive  method  before  Bacon  presented  it  to 
the  world,  some  discrimination  is  requisite.  The  greatest 
philosophical  critics  have  never  agreed  as  to  the  exact 
nature  of  the  induction  which  Bacon  sought  to  engraft 
upon  human  thought,  and  therefore  it  would  be  presump- 
tuous here  to  seek  its  definition.  If  his  philosophy  advo- 
cates induction  as  a  mode  of  reasoning  only  in  a  broad  and 
general  way,  it  but  follows  Roger  Bacon,  and,  more  closely, 
Leonardo  da  Vinci.  Indeed,  the  words  of  the  great  Italian, 
u  My  design  is  first  to  examine  facts,  and  afterwards  to 
demonstrate  how  bodies  are  constrained  to  act.  It  is  the 
method  that  one  must  adhere  to  in  all  research  into  nature" 
.  .  .  find  a  better  application  in  the  experiments  of  Gil- 
bert than  in  the  aphorisms  of  Bacon.  "Recent  induction, 
that  of  Mill  and  Whewell,  Herschel,  Faraday  and  Darwin," 
says  Professor  Nichol,  "is  the  means  by  which  great  se- 
quences of  nature,  called  laws,  are  investigated  by  the  aid 
of  apt  conjecture  and  by  careful  verification  established;"1 
and  such  was  the  induction  which  led  Gilbert  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  earth  is  a  great  magnet.  But  this,  accord- 
ing to  the  same  authority,  is  not  Baconian  induction,  for 
Bacon  aspired  to  penetrate  into  the  inner  nature  of  things, 
and  so  hold  them  in  command  by  the  aid  of  a  method 
which,  from  its  exhaustiveness,  he  held  to  be  as  certain  in 
its  results  as  a  demonstration  of  Euclid  ;  a  "conclusion  of 
necessity,"  so  mechanical  that  when  once  understood  all 
men  might  employ  it,  yet  so  startling  that  it  was  to  be  as  a 
new  sun  to  the  borrowed  beams  of  stars;  a  method  compared 
by  its  author  to  a  compass  which  equalizes  all  hands,  and 
enables  the  most  unpracticed  person  to  draw  a  more  correct 

1  Nichol:    Francis   Bacon,   his  life  and  his   philosophy.     Edinburgh, 
1889,  ii.,  181. 


BACON'S   INFLUENCE   ON   ELECTRICAL   PROGRESS.      331 

circle  than  the  best  draftsman  can  without  it,  and  which  is 
to  level  all  abilities,  and  eliminate  intellectual  acuteness 
and  the  play  of  genius  in  the  solution  of  the  problems  of 
nature.  If  such  be  the  Baconian  inductive  method,  Gilbert 
never  practiced  it,  and  it  may  be  questioned  whether  any 
one  has  ever  done  so.  That  Gilbert,  however,  pursued  the 
inductive  method  as  truly,  in  kind,  as  it  is  followed  in  the 
scientific  thought  of  to-day,  seems  beyond  dispute. 

It  has  been  suggested,  in  order  to  account  for  Bacon's 
attitude  not  only  toward  Gilbert  but  toward  Copernicus 
and  Harvey,  that  he  did  not,  in  reality,  initiate  modern 
philosophy,  but  closed  the  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages.1 
Nor  is  this  altogether  at  variance  with  the  view  taken  by 
Lord  Brougham  in  his  fine  summing  up  of  the  Baconian 
achievements,2  with  direct  reference  to  Roger  Bacon,  Da 
Vinci  and  Gilbert,  as  the  generalization  and  extension 
of  their  modes  of  investigation  "to  all  matters  of  contin- 
gent truth,  exploding  the  errors,  the  absurd  dogmas  and 
fantastic  subtleties  of  the  schools."  So,  in  estimating 
Bacon's  part  in  the  intellectual  rise  in  electricity,  we  find 
him  near  the  boundary  between  the  old  and  the  new  phil- 
osophy, and  apparently  influenced  by  the  old  mode  of 
thought  as  well  as  by  the  new.  Toward  the  science  as 
Gilbert  begun  it,  his  position  appears  to  have  been  inter- 
preted by  his  contemporaries  and  immediate  successors  as 
one  of  disparagement,  and  for  a  time  this  acted  to  retard 
progress;  while  his  failure  to  do  Gilbert  justice,  certainly 
savors  of  mediaeval  intolerance.  But  in  so  far  as  he  led 
the  world  to  the  investigation  of  all  physical  phenomena 
by  direct  experiment  and  correct  induction,  he  became 
ultimately  a  power  mightily  working  for  the  advancement 
of  knowledge  in  the  new  field. 

1  Erdmann,  History  of  Philosophy,  London,  1890. 

2  Brougham,  Address  on  Unveiling  of  Newton's  Statue,  1855. 


CHAPTER   XII. 

THERE  is  no  period  in  the  annals  of  England  which  is 
more  captivating  to  the  student  than  that  which  includes 
the  years  which  close  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  and  those 
immediately  following  the  accession  of  James  I.  It  was 
at  this  time,  we  are  told,  that  there  came  a  wonderful 
awakening  of  the  national  life,  an  unexampled  increase 
in  opulence,  refinement  and  leisure.  It  was  then  that  the 
glory  of  the  new  literature  burst  forth;  and  imagination, 
winged  by  the  genius  of  Shakespeare,  soared  to  its  su- 
premest  height.  Then  the  sails  of  Britain  swept  over  the 
furthest  seas,  and  the  romances  of  the  old  minstrels  became 
dull  and  vapid  beside  the  tales  which  the  weather-beaten 
mariner  brought  back  of  the  flowery  lands  and  golden 
shores  which,  beckoning  so  seductively,  set  the  staid  trader 
of  foggy  London  aflame  with  cupidity  and  with  enterprise. 
Then,  it  is  said,  arose  a  new  impulse  to  classical  study  and 
a  passion  for  the  master  literature  of  Greece  and  Italy. 
English  commerce  increased  and  wealth  poured  into  the 
land,  bringing  with  it  new  luxuries  and  a  new  demand  for 
wines  and  jewels  and  rich  apparel  and  sumptuous  equipage 
and  costly  dwellings.  The  huts  of  "sticks  and  mud" 
which  the  followers  of  Spanish  Philip  had  declared  the 
peasants'  hovels  to  be,  gave  place  to  houses  of  stone  and 
brick;  the  grim  and  battlemented  walls  of  feudal  times  to 
mansions  graceful  and  beautiful,  embowered  in  smiling 
gardens  and  decorated  with  the  exquisite  refinement  of 
Italian  art. 

Such,  briefly,  is  the  picture,  so  often  shown,  following 
the  recital  of  the  great  sea  victory  and  the  story  of 
the  years  of  fear  and  suspense  and  stagnation  which 
preceded  it,  until  it  seems  as  if  the  smoke  of  the  guns 

(332) 


THE  CONDITION  OF  SCIENCE  IN   ENGLAND.          333 

of  Hawkins  and  Drake  and  Frobisher,  like  the  gauze 
of  the  theatre,  had  obscured  the  stage  when  the  fortunes 
of  the  play  were  darkest,  only  to  be  swept  aside  to  reveal 
the  glory  of  England's  transformation. 

But  national  progress  does  not  depend  solely  upon  the 
growth,  however  remarkable,  of  polite  literature,  nor  even 
of  commerce.  It  finds  another  and  potent  aid  in  the  labors 
of  the  investigator  and  the  inventor  in  the  diffusion  of  a 
knowledge  of  physical  science  among  the  people,  and  in  an 
environment  wherein  discovery  and  invention  are  certain 
to  be  appreciated,  stimulated  and  fostered.  As  will  now 
be  seen,  the  intellectual  conditions  which  existed  in  Eng- 
land at  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  far 
from  favorable  either  to  the  development  of  inventive 
genius  or  the  encouragement  of  physical  inquiry. 

Whatever  of  scientific  knowledge  there  was  in  the 
country  was  restricted  to  the  physicians,  and  to  perhaps  a 
few  individuals  who,  like  Lord  Arundel,  built  for  them- 
selves huge  magnets  and  other  apparatus  merely  as  play- 
things. Certainly  it  was  not  to  be  found  in  the  Universi- 
ties. Oxford  and  Cambridge  were  under  the  rule  of  the 
Star  Chamber.  Bruno  describes  the  Dons,  despite  their 
gorgeous  robes  and  insignia,  as  ''devoid  of  courtesy  as 
cowherds."  Student  life  combined  the  seclusion  of  the 
monastery  with  the  riotous  dissipation  of  the  tavern.  The 
Protestant  sects  wrangled  ceaselessly  among  themselves, 
or  combined  their  jarring  forces  against  Rome.  Faith  in 
Aristotle,  so  greatly  weakened  abroad,  here  stood  in  unim- 
paired vigor,  and  those  who  had  not  drunk  deep  at  his 
fountain,  were  denied,  by  statute,  a  degree  either  in  phil- 
osophy or  theology.1  There  was  no  suggestion  of  new 
advance  which  was  not  flouted,  no  tolerance  save  for  end- 

1  Official  statutes  declared  that  Bachelors  and  Masters  of  Arts  who  did 
not  faithfully  follow  Aristotle  were  liable  to  a  fine  of  five  shillings  for 
every  point  of  divergence  or  for  every  fault  committed  against  the  Or- 
ganon.  Bruno  wittily  called  Oxford  "the  widow  of  sound  learning." 
Lewes:  Biog.  Hist,  of  Philosophy.  New  York,  1857. 


334         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

less  quibbling  over  names  and  words.  The  learning  of 
the  realm,  as  Bacon  said,  was  but  "an  infinite  chaos  of 
shadows  and  moths  wherewith  our  books  and  minds  are 
pestered." 

The  mob  detested  foreigners  and  all  their  ways.  The 
aristocracy  aped  the  Italians  under  what  Ascham  called 
the  "enchantment  of  Circe  brought  out  of  Italy  to  mar 
men's  manners  in  England,"  in  everything  except  educa- 
tion. In  1605,  Nicholas  Peiresc,  a  Frenchman  of  great 
learning,  visiting  England,  finds  nothing  more  worthy  of 
record  than  a  discussion  with  Camden  as  to  the  meaning  of 
the  names  of  French  towns,  and  a  summons  from  the  King 
to  relate  the  story  of  a  drinking  match.1  In  1615  Scioppius 
denied  that  James  could  collect  twenty  learned  men  in  all 
the  realm.  Brilliant  rhetoric,  casting  the  glamour  of  ro- 
mance and  poetry  about  the  Elizabethan  Age,  may  obscure 
the  fact  that  the  existing  state  of  learning  was  one  of  degra- 
dation; but  it  cannot  destroy  the  truth  of  it.  Neither  can  a 
recital  of  the  varied  attainments  of  the  Queen,  and  notices 
of  the  erection  of  new  grammar  schools  and  of  increased 
interest  in  the  ancient  classics  among  the  word-spinners, 
serve  to  make  that  which  was  in  the  mire  appear  to  have 
been  in  the  clouds. 

"The  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,"  says  the  ingenuous 
Thomas  Sprat  in  1667,  summing  up  the  true  condition  of 
learning  in  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  England,  "was  long, 
triumphant,  peaceable  at  home  and  glorious  abroad  .  .  . 
but  though  knowledge  began  abundantly  to  spring  forth, 
yet  it  was  not  then  seasonable  for  experiments  to  receive 
the  public  encouragement,  while  the  writings  of  antiquity 
and  the  controversies  between  us  and  the  Church  of  Rome 
were  not  fully  studied  and  despatched.  The  reign  of  King 
James  was  happy  in  all  the  benefits  of  peace,  and  plenti- 
fully furnished  with  men  of  profound  learning,  but,  in 
imitation  of  the  king,  they  chiefly  regarded  the  matters  of 
religion  and  disputation,  so  that  even  my  Lord  Bacon,  with 

1  Gassendus :  The  Mirrour  of  True  Nobility  and  Gentry.  London,  1657. 


WRIGHT  AND   BARLOWE.  335 

all  his  authority  in  the  state,  could  never  raise  any  college 
of  Solomon  but  in  a  romance."  l  Such  were  the  times  dur- 
ing which  the  announcement  of  the  electrical  discoveries 
of  Gilbert  appeared. 

As  a  Copernican,  Gilbert,  in  his  own  country,  had  few 
co-believers;  and  as  he  had  not  merely  linked  his  physical 
researches  to  the  heliocentric  doctrine,  but  had  sought  to 
substantiate  the  latter  by  them,  it  followed  for  this  reason 
that  his  entire  work  stood  discredited  in  the  eyes  of  Eng- 
lish scholars  generally..  But  even  if  he  had  not  adhered 
to  the  new  theory,  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  there 
was  sufficient  knowledge  of  physical  science  existing  in 
England  to  secure  for  his  magnetic  and  electric  discoveries 
even  a  superficial  understanding  by  the  learned  classes. 
So  far  as  written  records  prove,  there  were  but  two  men  in 
the  kingdom,  both  his  personal  friends,  who,  had  any 
special  attainments  in  matters  magnetical.  These  were 
Edward  Wright2  and  William  Barlowe,3  and  even  their 
interest  in  the  subject  was  mainly  utilitarian,  and  depended 
upon  the  belief  that  Gilbert  had  discovered  some  new  nav- 
igating instruments  and  simpler  methods  than  were  in  ex- 
istence for  finding  a  ship's  position  at  sea. 

Gilbert  had  no  practical  knowledge  of  navigation,  and 
his  sea  voyaging  had  begun  and  ended  with  the  crossing 
of  the  English  Channel  when  he  made  his  continental 
tour.  Wright,  on  the  other  hand,  was  probably  the  most 
skillful  sea  mathematician  in  all  England.  He  had  made 
long  voyages,  even  to  South  America.  He  had  plotted 
new  charts  and  corrected  old  ones,  and  had  even  become 
involved  in  a  dispute  with  the  famous  Gerhard  Mercator, 
wherein  he  claimed  the  maps,  made  on  what  is  now  known 
as  Mercator' s  projection,  to  have  been  of  his  own  first  de- 
vising. He  had  invented  new  methods  of  solar  observa- 

1  Sprat:  Hist.  Roy.  Soc.     London,  1667. 

2  Bibliographica  Philosophica. 

8  Wood:  Athenae  Oxonienses,  1813;  Biograph.  Britann.;  LeNeve:  Fasti. 
Eccl.  Anglia.  Ed.  Hardy;  Stephen:  Dicty.  Nat.  Biog.  N.  Y.,  1885. 


336         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tion,  had  written  books  on  navigation,  was  lecturer  on  that 
subject  to  the  East  India  Company,  and  ultimately  became 
a  tutor  of  the  Prince  of  Wales.  Wright  actively  assisted 
Gilbert,  not  only  in  the  gathering  of  material  and  the  edit- 
ing of  his  treatise,  but  is  said  to  have  prepared  the  twelfth 
chapter  of  the  fourth  book,  in  which  there  appears  a  table 
of  the  fixed  stars.1  He  also  wrote  the  address  to  Gilbert 
which  is  prefixed  to  the  De  Magnete.  It  seems  not  unrea- 
sonable to  assume  that  his  belief  in  the  practical  importance 
of  the  instruments  which  Gilbert  describes  caused  him  to 
advocate  speedy  publication  of  the  work,  in  order  to  bring 
them  into  the  hands  of  the  merchant  adventurers  and  nav- 
igators as  soon  as  possible,  and  this  may  account  for  the 
brevity  of  the  final  chapters,  wherein  Gilbert  develops  his 
cosmical  theories.  For  these  speculations  Wright,  al- 
though a  Copernican  himself,  had'little  fancy,  and  merely 
mentions  them  perfunctorily  in  his  preface. 

While  Wright  was  a  navigator  who  had  learned  his  art 
at  sea,  Barlowe  was  one  who  believed  himself  to  have 
acquired  it  in  cathedrals.  In  1597  he  published  a  book 
entitled  the  Navigators'  Supply,  dedicated  to  the  Earl  of 
Essex,  wherein  he  ingratiates  himself  with  the  sea-faring 
man  by  the  following  remarkable  preface:  "Touching 
experience  in  these  matters  (compasses,  etc.)  I  have  none. 
For,  by  natural  construction  of  body,  even  when  I  was 
young  and  strongest,  I  altogether  abhorred  the  sea.  How- 
beit,  that  antipathy  of  my  body  against  so  barbarous  an 
element  could  never  have  hindered  the  sympathy  of  my 
mind  and  hearty  affection  towards  so  worthy  an  art  as 
navigation  is ;  tied  to  that  element,  if  you  respect  the  out- 
ward toil  of  the  hand,  but  clearly  freed  therefrom,  if  you 
regard  the  apprehension  of  the  mind."  But  the  refreshing 
naivete  of  this  is  even  surpassed  by  his  effort  to  neutralize 
its  effect  by  claiming  the  especial  consideration  of  the 
reader  for  his  book  because  it  "Was  written  by  a  bishop's 
sonne,  and,  by  affinitie,  to  many  bishops  kinne" — 
1  Ridley:  Magnetical  Animadversions.  London,  1617,  p.  n. 


WILLIAM    BARLOWE.  337 

thus  betraying  the  innocent  belief  that  the  accumulated 
ecclesiastical  influence  which  he  wielded,  because  of  his 
filial  relation  to  one  bishop  and  his  fraternal  relation  to  the 
four  others  whom  his  sisters  had  espoused,  would  secure 
for  him,  from  the  briny  mariner  afloat,  the  same  sort  of 
favor  which,  ashore,  finally  landed  him  in  the  comfortable 
Archdiaconate  of  Salisbury. 

Barlowe,  however,  was  far  more  deeply  interested  in  Gil- 
bert's magnetical  experiments  than  Wright,  because  he 
was  making  similar  researches  himself.  It  has  been 
claimed1  for  him  that  he  had  "knowledge  in  the  magnet n 
twenty  years  before  Gilbert's  book  appeared,  and  that  he 
was  accounted  superior,  or  at  least  equal,  to  Gilbert  as  a 
"searcher  and  finder  out  of  many  rare  and  magnetical 
secrets  ;"  but  there  is  nothing  to  substantiate  this  in  any- 
thing Barlowe  ever  published.  He  certainly  was  in  no 
hurry  to  give  to  the  world  either  his  own  magnetical  re- 
searches, or  to  express  his  approval  of  those  of  his  friend. 
He  owed  his  earlier  advancement  to  the  friendship  of 
Essex,  whom,  to  his  credit  be  it  said,  he  did  not  desert  in 
adversity,  and  to  whom  he  ministered  even  on  the  scaffold; 
and  then,  in  the  next  reign,  he  became  chaplain  to  the 
Prince  of  Wales,  on  his  way  to  his  final  preferment ;  so 
that,  even  if  he  had  been  a  Copernican  at  heart,  which  he 
was  not,  it  would  have  been  to  the  last  degree  impolitic  for 
him  to  have  rushed  into  an  endorsement  of  a  work  wherein 
the  proscribed  theory  was  so  strenuously  maintained.  Be- 
sides, in  1605  came  Bacon's  earliest  fling  at  Gilbert — the 
first  English  criticism  of  the  De  Magnete  from  an  eminent 
source — and  that  this  had  a  deterrent  influence  upon  him 
may  also  be  conceived.  But  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
human  nature  in  Barlowe,  revealing  itself  with  more  than 
common  transparency.  He  did  not  dare,  in  1600,  to  chal- 
lenge Gilbert's  priority  to  himself,  nor  even  then  to  make 
public  his  own  alleged  discoveries ;  but  when,  in  1613, 
another  Richmond  suddenly  leaped  into  the  field  in  the 

1Wood:  Athense  Oxouienses,  London,  1813,  Vol.  II,  375. 
22 


338          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

person  of  Mark  Ridley,  he  rose  in  arms.  It  is  of  no 
moment  to  him  that  Ridley  tells  the  world  nothing  more 
than  Gilbert  had  already  told  it  a  dozen  years  earlier,  and 
that  he  is  merely  attacking,  at  too  late  a  date,  Gilbert  over 
Ridley's  shoulders.  He  disputes  Ridley  in  toto;  and  thus 
begins  the  first  of  the  many  controversies  which  have  in- 
volved every  material  discovery  and  invention  in  electrical 
science. 

Little  is  known  about  Ridley  beyond  his  own  descrip- 
tion of  himself  on  his  title  page  as  u  Doctor  in  physicke 
and  Philosophic,  Latly  Physition  to  the  Kmperour  of 
Russia  and  one  of  ye  eight  principals  or  Elects  of  the  Col- 
ledge  of  Physitions  in  London;"  but  his  book  is  remark- 
able for  its  peculiarly  practical  advice  and  for  the  recom- 
mendation, in  the  preface,  that  the  reader  should  provide 
himself  with  "such  like  forms  of  Magnets  as  I  have  de- 
scribed ...  as  also  of  needles,  wiers  and  waights  of  iron 
and  steel,"  upon  the  procurement  of  which  "then  them 
mayest  read  and  practice  the  operations  and  demonstra- 
tions of  this  book." 

There  is  a  vast  difference  between  this  counsel,  followed 
by  pages  of  detailed  instructions  and  pictures,  and  the 
apology  which,  not  very  many  years  before,  prefaced  Rob- 
ert Norman's  work.  There  it  was  feared  that  magnetic 
matters  "may  be  said  by  the  learned  in  the  mathemati- 
cal les  "  to  be  u  no  question  or  matter  for  Mechanician  or 
Mariner  to  meddle  with,"  and  it  was  begged  that  they 
u  do  not  disdainefully  condemne  men  that  will  search  out 
the  secrets  of  their  Artes  and  Professions  and  publish  the 
same  to  the  use  and  behoofe  of  others." 

Ridley's  treatise,  in  the  main,  however,  is  in  substance 
but  an  amplified  review  of  most  of  the  magnetic  experi- 
ments which  Gilbert  records  in  the  De  Magnete.  The 
Copernican  doctrine  is  accepted  somewhat  hesitatingly, 
and  with  less  reservation  Gilbert's  affirmation  of  the  mag- 
netic nature  of  the  globe. 

As  allusion  is  also  made  to  his  cosmical  notions,  includ- 


THE   BARLOWE  AND   RIDLEY   CONTROVERSY.          339 

ing  the  supposed  magnetic  attractions  of  earth.,  it  appears 
that  Ridley  was  also  one  of  the  illustrious  men  who 
Gruter  says  had  access  to  the  manuscript  of  Gilbert's  post- 
humous Philosophia  Nova,  of  course  before  Bacon  sup- 
pressed it. 

It  is  but  just  to  Barlowe  to  state  that  he  claims  to  have 
written  the  work  which  appeared  in  1618  in  reply  to 
Ridley,  some  seven  years  earlier,  and  that  the  manuscript, 
having  been  delivered  to  his  chosen  patron,  Sir  Thomas 
Challoner,  was,  as  he  says,  "either  mislaied  or  embeseled." 
The  book,  as  published,  was  dedicated  to  another  poli- 
tician, Sir  Dudley  Digges.  Barlowe  compares  him  to  the 
magnet,  because  he  thinks  Digges  maintains  "so  pleasing 
a  carriage  toward  everie  man,  as  causeth  all  good  men 
which  know  you  to  love  you  by  force  of  a  natural  sympa- 
thy," which  was  a  new  use  of  the  old  metaphor  in  its  ap- 
plication to  a  politician,  and  confers  upon  the  astute  Am- 
bassador of  Elizabeth  the  honor  of  being  the  first  of  modern 
"magnetic  statesmen." 

I  shall  not  pause  to  examine  the  magnetic  experiments 
which  Barlowe  records,  for  they  augment  but  little  the  facts 
already  known.  Nor  does  his  brief  reference  to  electric 
phenomena  add  anything,  except  the  word  "electrical," 
to^the  language.  In  fact,  he  translates  Gilbert's  "elec- 
trica,"  as  "electricall  bodies,"  and  not  "electrics;"  and 
speaks  of  "electricall  attraction,"  which  he  says  is  in  "in- 
finite other  things  both  naturale  and  compound"  besides 
those  noted  by  Gilbert.  But  he  gives  no  additional  names 
of  electrics,  nor,  despite  his  alleged  extension  of  Gilbert's 
observations,  has  he  the  slightest  notion  of  electrical  re- 
pulsion or  conduction. 

Barlowe' s  assertion  that  his  thunder  had  been  stolen, 
provoked  from  Ridley  a  prompt  and  caustic  reply  under 
the  title  of  Magneticall  Animadversions,1  in  which  Ridley 
avers  that  there  is  not  a  fact  in  Barlowe's  treatise  that  was 
not  well  known  long  before  his  first  manuscript  was  given 

1  Cit.  sup. 


340         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

to  Challoner,  and  that  what  Barlowe  had  not  purloined 
from  Gilbert  he  had  filched  from  him.  But  Barlowe  is 
still  eager  for  the  fray. 

"Except  this  Ridley  had  ploughed  with  my  Heifer  hee 
had  not  known  my  Riddle,"  he  rejoins  /  after  assert- 
ing that  Ridley  had  surreptitiously  obtained  a  manuscript 
copy  of  his  book,  and  identifying  with  careful  precision 
much  of  his  stolen  property  in  Ridley's  pages.  And  then, 
after  sating  himself  with  verbal  scarification  of  Ridley,  he 
essays  to  meet  the  acrimonious  demand  of  the  latter  that 
he  should  state  unequivocally  the  precise  inventions  he 
claims  to  have  made,  and  specifies  improvements  in  hang- 
ing the  dipping  needle,  the  magnetical  difference  between 
iron  and  steel,  "the  right  way  of  touching  magneticall 
needles,"  the  piecing  and  cementing  of  lodestones,  and  that 
a  "Loadstone  being  double  capped  must  take  up  so  great 
weight;"  which  we  may  pass  by  mainly  because  those 
which  are  of  importance  are  not  Barlowe's,  and  those 
which  are  probably  his  are  not  important. 

The  best  thing  Barlowe  did  was  to  draw  a  clear  line  be- 
tween Gilbert's  magnetic  discoveries  and  Gilbert's  cosmical 
theories,  by  distinctly  affirming  the  first  and  as  distinctly 
disaffirming  the  second — "Entreating  of  the  motion  of  the 
earth,"  he  says,  "I  think  there  is  no  man  living  further 
from  beleeving  itt  than  myself,"  thus  setting  himself  right 
with  the  Anti-Copernicans;  and  then  reconciling  his  appar- 
ent simultaneous  belief  and  disbelief  in  Gilbert  by  quoting 
"Amicus  Socrates,  Amicus  Plato,  sed  magis  arnica  veritas" 
and  "Nullius  addictus  jurare  in  verba  Magistri."  Ridley 
drew  no  such  line  because  he  was  himself  Copernican»  It 
will  be  remembered  that  Bacon  also  separated  Gilbert's 
discoveries  and  hypotheses,  and  that  it  is  only  after  per- 
ceiving that  fact  that  his  diverse  criticisms  can  be  mutually 
reconciled;  but  unlike  Barlowe  he  left  the  dividing  bound- 
ary hazy  and  obscure. 

Marlowe:  A  Briefe  Discovery  of  the  Idle  Animadversions  of  Marke 
Ridley.  London,  1618. 


STATE  OF   LEARNING   IN   ITALY.  341 

Such  was  the  reception  which  was  accorded  the  Gilbert- 
ian  discoveries  at  home;  five  years  of  neglect  and  probable 
ridicule,  then  Bacon's  initial  attack,  then  plagiarism  of 
them,  and  finally  a  wrangle  between  the  appropriators. 
Besides,  and  almost  at  the  outset,  there  came  from  Hol- 
land the  sneering  comment  of  Scaliger  the  son — then  pro- 
fessor of  Belles  Lettres  at  the  University  of  Ley  den — swift 
to  repay  the  sharp  criticisms  of  Gilbert  upon  the  vagaries 
of  Scaliger  the  father.  "A  certain  Englishman  produced 
a  book  on  the  magnet  three  years  ago,"  he  writes  to  Casau- 
bon,  "which  has  not  justified  the  expectations  formed  of 
it."  "It  proved  to  be  more  his  doctrine,"  he  said  at  an- 
other time,  "than  the  nature  of  the  magnet.."1 

"Stare  negas  Terrain:  nobis  miracula  n arras: 
Hae  cum  scribebas:  in  rate  forsan  eras," 

was  the  sneering  epigram  written  by  John  Owen.2 


Between  the  state  of  learning  in  England  during  the 
period  before  noted  and  that  existing  in  Italy,  the  contrast 
is  impressive.3  In  the  latter  country,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  peace  had  reigned  unbroken  for 
forty  years  and  as  a  consequence  the  advance  in  all  the 
arts  of  civilization  had  been  rapid.  The  universities  of 
Bologna,  Padua,  Pisa  and  Pavia  were  attracting  larger 
numbers  of  students  than  ever  before,  and  of  these  no 
small  proportion  were  devoting  themselves  to  mathematics 

1  Scaliger:  Epist.  200,  and  Epist.  ad  Casaubon.  For  these  and  other 
criticisms  of  Gilbert  see  Blount:  Censura  Celebriorum  Authorum,  Gen- 
eva, 1710. 

2 "This  firm-set  earth,  you  do  deny. 

Perhaps  when  this  you  wrote 
'Twas  not  the  sky  that  sailed  by, 
But  only  you,  afloat. 

"See  Hallam's  Literature  of  Europe,  vols.  II  and  III.;  also  Robertson's 
Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  London,  1893. 


342          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

and  medicine.  While  from  such  centres  flowed  whole 
rivers  of  learning,  there  sprang  countless  rivulets  from  the 
societies  and  academies  which  arose  all  over  Italy.  The 
purely  literary  gatherings  which  had  met  for  many  years 
and  which  had  become  a  part  of  the  social  life  of  the 
country,  were  now  promoting  scientific  culture  and  the 
interchange  of  philosophical  thought.  Such,  for  exam- 
ple, were  the  ridotti  of  Andrea  Morosini  the  historian,  of 
Paolo  and  Aldo  Manuzio,  "princes  in  the  art  of  typog- 
raphy," and  of  the  famous  merchant  Sechini,  in  Venice. 
And,  of  all,  perhaps  the  most  famous  was  that  which  Gian 
Vicenzo  Penelli  held  in  his  magnificent  house  in  Padua. 
Here  the  discussions  took  place  between  such  intellect- 
ual giants  as  Fra  Paolo,  Galileo,  Santorio,  Fabricius  of 
Acquapendente,  Alpino,  Mercuriale,  Ghetaldo,  Antonio  de 
Medici  and  Fra  Fulgenzio.  Here  was  one  of  the  finest 
libraries  and  scientific  collections  ever  gathered  by  private 
munificence — a  treasure-house  of  rarities,  of  globes,  maps, 
mathematical  instruments  and  fossils — presided  over  by  a 
man  who  had  made  its  establishment  a  labor  of  love,  and 
had  devoted  to  it  a  great  fortune;  in  order,  as  Peiresc  re- 
ports after  visiting  its  marvels,  to  furnish  "all  the  learned 
men  of  the  age,  both  far  and  near,  with  such  books  and 
other  things  as  they  stood  in  need  of."1  Gian  Francesco 
Sagredo  maintained  another  museum  in  Venice,  his  house 
resembling  a  Noah's  Ark,  having  in  it,  as  he  tells  us,  "all 
manner  of  beasts."  2  In  Milan  were  the  magnificent  miner- 
alogical  and  zoological  collections  of  Aldrovandus.  Fin- 
ally there  was  the  Academy  of  the  Lyncei  or  Lynxes  (so 
called  with  reference  to  its  desire  to  pierce  lynx-eyed  into 
the  depths  of  truth)  devoted  especially  to  physical  science, 
and,  although  founded  in  1603  by  Frederic  Cesi,  then  a 
boy  of  eighteen,  soon  numbering  among  its  members  such 
men  as  Porta,  Galileo  and  Colonna. 

In  a  country  imbued  with  so  great  a  taste  for  learning, 

'Gassendus:  Mirrour  of  Nobility,  cit.  sup. 
2  Celeste:  Private  Life  of  Galileo,  Phila.,  1879. 


GIAN   FRANCESCO   SAGREDO.  343 

and  possessing  men  whose  attainments  placed  them  far  in 
advance  of  all  other  European  scholars,  it  would  have  been 
indeed  strange  if  the  announcement  of  such  discoveries  as 
those  of  Gilbert  had  failed  to  arouse  the  liveliest  interest. 
Nor  did  the  acute  minds  of  the  Italians  long  delay  the  sep- 
aration of  the  wheat  from  the  chaff,  for  they  quickly  saw 
that  Gilbert's  recognition  of  the  magnetic  property  of  the 
earth,  and  the  experiments  underlying  this  discovery,  were 
of  far  greater  scientific  importance  than  his  notions  as  to 
the  structure  of  the  heavens. 

Gilbert's  treatise  must  have  reached  Italy  with  remark- 
able celerity  for  those  days.  In  his  letter,  dated  February 
1 3th  (presumably),  1602,  which  Barlow  publishes,  he  speaks 
of  being  in  direct  epistolary  communication  with  Sagredo, 
and  says  "that  he  hath  conferred  with  divers  learned  men 
in  Venice  and  with  the  readers  of  Padua,  and  reporteth  a 
wonderful  liking  of  my  book."  This  was  the  verdict 
which  Gilbert  wanted — the  praise  of  the  men  the  extent 
of  whose  learning  he  knew  and  whose  ability  he  honored. 
Beside  this,  the  contemptuous  silence  of  his  own  country- 
men became  a  matter  of  indifference. 

The  name  of  Gian  Francesco  Sagredo  has  been  rendered 
immortal  by  Galileo,  who  adopts  it  as  that  of  one  of  the 
participators  in  his  famous  Dialogues.  Nor  was  this  dis- 
tinction solely  due  to  the  fact  that  Sagredo,  perhaps  be- 
yond all  others,  was  the  beloved  disciple,  as  well  as  the 
ardent  adherent  and  benefactor,  of  the  great  philosopher. 
He  was  a  Venetian  patrician,  endowed  with  an  ample  for- 
tune, which  he  spent  profusely  upon  his  collections  of 
apparatus  and  curiosities.  He  had  already  studied  the 
magnet  and  knew  all  that  Fracastorio  and  Cardan  had 
written  concerning  it.  He  was  in  immediate  touch  with 
Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  as  well  as  with  Galileo — the  former  the 
greatest  representative  of  u the  learned  men  of  Venice," 
the  latter  a  "reader  of  Padua." 

In  the  fall  of  1602,  Sarpi  is  said  to  have  written  to 
Galileo  referring  directly  to  Gilbert's  discoveries,  and 


344         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

asking  for  explanations  of  them.  But  concerning  this 
fact,  as  in  regard  to  most  other  evidences  of  Sarpi's  knowl- 
edge of  magnetism,  doubt  has  been  thrown.  Writers, 
probably  influenced  by  the  Church  in  its  bitter  hostility 
to  Sarpi,  insist  upon  the  authenticity  of  the  letter,  and 
claim  that  it  proves  that  the  great  Venetian  had  no  such 
attainments  in  physical  science  as  his  advocates  aver,  and 
that  hence  Galileo's  famous  reference  to  him  as  umy  father 
and  master ' '  should  be  interpreted  as  indicating  that  the 
Friar  was  merely  the  philosopher's  spiritual  guide.1  The 
Florentine  Society,  in  publishing  the  collected  correspond- 
ence of  Galileo,  however,  reject  the  communication  as 
probably  not  written  by  Sarpi.2  So,  also,  Sarpi's  relations 
to  Gilbert  have  been  very  differently  regarded.  Some 
biographers  even  assert  that  Gilbert  learned  from  Sarpi  all 
the  magnetical  discoveries  which  he  subsequently  pre- 
sented as  original,3  and  fix  the  time  of  communication 
as  during  Gilbert's  foreign  tour,4  which  is  absurd,  seeing 
that  Sarpi  was  then  very  young  and  had  only  just  attracted 
notice  by  his  precocity  in  theological  debate.5  Sarpi  him- 
self, on  the  other  hand,  strongly  praises  Gilbert's  work, 
adding:  "I  have  not  seen  a  man  in  this  century  who 
has  written  originally  save  Vieta  in  France  and  Gilbert  in 
England" — an  enconium  which,  as  Hallam  justly  observes, 
he  would  hardly  have  passed  without  a  hint  to  the  effect 
that  the  discoveries  were  in  fact  his  own.6 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  Galileo  learned  of 
Gilbert's  discoveries  from  Sagredo,  and  repeated  his  ex- 

1  Nelli :  Vita  e  Commercio  Letterario  di  G.  Galilei,  Lausanne,  1793,  i, 
407. 

2Opere  de  G.  Galilei,  Florence,  1851. 

3Griselini:  Vita  de  Fr a  Paolo  Sarpi,  Lausanne,  1760.  Giovini :  Ibid., 
Brussels,  1836.  Fabronio :  Vitse  Italorum,  Pisa,  1798,  xvii. 

*Garbio:  Annali  di  Serviti,  Lucca,  1721,  vii.  Micanzio:  Vita  de  F.  P. 
Sarpi,  Verona,  1750. 

5 Robertson:  Fra  Paolo  Sarpi,  London,  1893. 

6 Hallam:  Lit.  Europe,  London,  1864,  iii,  333. 


UNIVERSITY   J 

^  OF  JJ 

GALILEO  GALILEI.  345 

peri m en ts  very  shortly  after  their  communication  to  the 

world.1  The  great  lawyer  who  wrote  philosophy  "like  a 
Lord  Chancellor"  had  already  rendered  his  sarcastic  judg- 
ment upon  "Gilbert  our  countryman,"  who  "hath  made 
a  philosophy  out  of  the  observations  of  a  lodestone."  The 
greater  practitioner  of  the  philosophy  of  works,  writing  to 
the  Grand  Duchess  of  Tuscany  in  1606,  had  no  compunc- 
tion in  overruling  that  judgment,  and  in  announcing  the 
advent  of  a  philosophy  confirmed  by  evident  demonstra- 
tions, and  "showing  our  earth  to  be  in  its  primary  and 
universal  substance  none  other  than  a  great  globe  of  lode- 
stone."  2  Nor  did  he  ever  waver  from  that  opinion.  A 
quarter  of  a  century  later  it  is  re-asserted  and  amplified 
over  pages  in  the  famous  Dialogue,  which  brought  him 
into  the  clutches  of  the  Inquisition.3 

In  1607  began  a  remarkable  correspondence4  between 
Galileo  and  the  reigning  Duke  of  Tuscany,  who  had  been, 
and  to  some  extent  still  was,  Galileo's  pupil.  Of  all  the 
magnetic  phenomena  which  Gilbert  had  recorded,  none, 
saving  the  theory  of  the  earth's  magnetism,  appears  to  have 
impressed  Galileo  more  strongly  than  the  discoveries  of 
Gilbert  concerning  the  armed  lodestone,  and  especially  the 
notable  increase  in  lifting  power  which  seemed  to  follow 
the  attachment  of  the  iron  helmet  or  cap  to  the  pole. 
Gilbert  had  *said  that,  by  means  of  this  cap  or  armature, 
a  stone  capable  of  raising  but  four  ounces  could  be  made 
to  raise  a  weight  of  twelve  ounces,  and  that  when  the  poles 
of  two  such  stones  thus  armed  were  caused  mutually  to 
attract,  the  joint  action  of  both  would  lift  a  weight  of 

"  Galileo  made  many  experiments  upon  the  magnet,  and  both  he  and 
his  favorite  pupil,  Sagredus,  were  moved  to  meditate  thereon  through 
having  received  Gilbert's  book."— Nelli:  Vita,  etc.,  di  G.  Galileo.  Lau- 
sanne, 1793,  i.,  103. 

2  Celeste:  The  Private  Life  of  Galileo.     Phila.,  1879. 
*  Galileo:  Systema  Cosmicum,  in  quo  Dialogis,  iv..  etc.     Ed.  Leyden, 
1641,  Dialog,  iii.,  p.  296. 
4Opere  di  G.  Galileo.     Florence,  1851. 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 


twenty  ounces;  and  he  describes  other  experiments,  all 
going  to  show  the  increased  lifting  power  gained  by  the 
attachment  of  the  armature.  Galileo,  it  seems,  for  the 
purpose  of  repeating  Gilbert's  experiments,  had  prepared 


GAUGED 


for  himself  a  lodestone  weighing  about  half  a  pound  Tus- 
can, and  this  the  duke  wanted.  Galileo  thereupon  wrote 
to  the  ducal  secretary,  stating  that  while  everything  that 
he  owned  was  at  the  disposal  of  his  sovereign,  he  ventured 

'Reduced  fac  simile  of  the  frontispiece  of  his  vSystema  Cosmicum. 
Ley  den,  1641. 


THE   MAGNETIC  RESEARCHES  OF  GALILEO.  347 

to  suggest  that  a  friend  of  his  (Sagredo)  possessed  a  lode- 
stone  far  more  worthy  of  the  notice  of  his  Serene  Highness, 
and  which  weighed  fully  five  pounds,  but  for  which  the 
large  sum  of  four  hundred  crowns  was  demanded. 

The  curious  spectacle  then  followed  of  the  Sovereign  of 
Tuscany  and  the  great  philosopher  keenly  haggling  for  sev- 
eral months  over  the  purchase  price,  until  finally  the  duke's 
offer  of  a  considerably  reduced  amount  was  accepted.  Gal- 
ileo then  became  uneasy  lest  the  stone  should  not  accom- 
plish what  he  had  stated  that  it  would  do,  namely,  lift  its 
own  weight,  and  thereupon  he  caused  the  magnet  to  be 
sent  to  him  by  Sagredo,  in  order  that  he  might  satisfy 
himself  by  experiment  as  to  its  efficiency.  What  he  did 
with  it  he  recounts  in  his  letter  of  transmission.  He  fitted 
up  the  stone  at  his  own  expense  with  armatures,  which  he 
makes  in  the  form  of  two  little  anchors  (suggestive,  as  he 
says,  of  the  fabulous  notion  that  a  magnet  might  lift  a 
ship's  anchor),  for  purposes  of  conveniencej  inasmuch  as 
when  the  stock  of  the  anchor  is  applied  to  the  magnet  pole 
other  pieces  of  iron  can  be  applied  to  the  hook,  up  to  the 
extreme  limit  of  the  strength  of  the  magnet. 

It  is  exceedingly  interesting  to  note  how  carefully  and 
ingeniously  he  proceeds  to  provide  for  the  requirements 
of  future  experimentation.  "I  have  not  made  the  anchors 
of  the  great  weight,"  he  says,  u  which  I  have  seen  the 
stone  to  be  able  to  sustain;  first,  in  order  to  be  sure  that, 
without  tedious  trial,  the  irons  suddenly  presented  to  the 
poles  of  the  stone  would  attach  themselves,  and,  second, 
because  I  think  that  the  same  piece  will  not  be  sustained 
with  the  same  force  in  all  places  of  the  earth. "  He 
thought  that  the  magnet  poles  would  be  governed  some- 
what in  attractive  power  by  the  proximity  of  the  earth's 
poles,  so  that,  in  this  way,  "the  stronger  pole  of  the  stone 
should  sustain  something  more  at  Padua  than  at  Florence 
or  Pisa."  Therefore,  he  is  anxious  to  have  this  question 
tested,  and  to  that  end,  while  he  makes  the  anchor  arma- 
tures themselves  of  a  weight  not  as  great  as  that  which  the 


348         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

stone  will  sustain,  he  applies  to  them,  in  the  form  of 
separable  pieces,  numerous  bits  of  iron  which,  with  the 
anchors,  aggregated  a  weight  greater  than  the  stone's  sus- 
taining power,  as  he  carefully  adds  "in  the  condition  in 
which  I  sent  it":  thus  guarding  against  an  apprehended 
possibility  that  the  stone  will  not  behave  in  Florence  in 
the  hands  of  others  as  well  as  it  has  acted  in  Padua  in  his 
own. 

He  provides  the  stone  also  with  a  strengthening 
piece,  apparently  arranged  so  that  the  armatures  cannot 
be  placed  anywhere  except  at  the  proper  places.  Then  he 
says  that  both  armatures  had  better  be  applied  at  once, 
because  he  has  found,  to  his  great  surprise,  that  uan  iron 
so  heavy  that  by  itself  it  will  not  be  governed  by  one  pole, 
will  become  attached  thereto  if  another  iron  is  applied  to 
the  opposite  pole."  He  also  sends  with  the  stone  two  ex- 
tra pieces  of  iron,  one  of  which  is  to  be  in  the  form  of  a 
cylinder  and  to  be  placed  upon  a  smooth  table,  and  the 
other  to  be  applied  to  the  stone  at  a  marked  point;  and 
this  cylinder,  in  some  way  which  he  does  not  very  clearly 
describe,  is  to  be  first  repelled  by  the  magnet  brought  near 
it,  and  then  attracted — a  result  evidently  depending  upon 
variations  in  the  distance  intervening  between  the  strong 
lodestone  and  the  rolling  cylinder  which,  by  induction,  it 
weakly  magnetizes.  And  then  he  adds  the  first  announce- 
ment of  the  true  effect  of  the  armature  as  a  keeper  in 
actually  invigorating  and  retaining  the  strength  of  the 
magnet,  by  being  allowed  to  remain  in  contact  with  the 
poles,  and  suggests  the  provision  of  a  support,  so  arranged 
that  the  armatures  may  always  remain  attached  and  in 
place.  Finally  he  says  that  not  only  will  the  stone  sustain 
its  own  weight,  but  a  load  four  times  greater,  which,  in  a 
magnet  of  such  large  proportions,  he  regards  as  marvelous, 
and  he  expresses  the  opinion  that  if  it  were  cut  up  into 
small  pieces  the  latter  might  be  made  to  hold  iron  aggre- 
gating six  or  eight  times  their  weight. 

Such  were  the  interesting  results  of  the  study  which 


NICOLAUS  CAB^US.  349 

Galileo  made  upon  Sagredo's  large  magnet.  His  investi- 
gations at  that  time  went  no  further,  for  the  following  year 
saw  his  invention  of  the  astronomical  telescope,  imme- 
diately succeeded  by  the  magnificent  discoveries  in  the 
heavens  upon  which  his  fame  chiefly  rests.  When  he 
took  up  the  magnet  cursorily  in  after  years  it  was  still  to 
ponder  over  its  attractive  power  and  how  this  might  be 
augmented,  or  to  devise  theories  to  account  for  the  appar- 
ent strengthening  effect  of  the  armature.  He  supposed, 
in  the  end,  that  the  iron  was  drawn  to  the  armature  with 
greater  force  simply  because  the  two  surfaces,  being  smooth 
and  polished,  presented  more  points  of  contact  than  could 
exist  between  iron  and  the  rough  magnet,1  which  was 
perhaps  as  good  for  the  time  as  Gilbert's  notion  that  the 
touch  of  the  stone  awoke  a  slumbering  virtue  in  the  arma- 
ture, and  that  then  both  pulled  with  their  joint  forces; 
and  fully  as  reasonable  for  example  as  some  hypotheses 
accounting  for  the  microphonic  transmission  of  speech. 

The  huge  magnet  which  was  sent  to  the  Grand  Duke 
served  its  purpose  as  a  toy  for  that  potentate  and  his  suc- 
cessors for  many  a  day.  Ninety  years  later  it  became  lost, 
and  then  Leibnitz,  writing  to  Magliabecchi,2  deplores  the 
disappearance  of  a  relic  which  he  says  the  scientific  world 
would  have  prized  beyond  the  most  precious  gem,  a  lament 
which  he  might  equally  well  have  made  over  the  earlier 
destruction  of  Gilbert's  terrellas  in  the  great  London  fire. 

The  Italian  philosophers  were  not  so  swift  to  appreciate 
Gilbert's  electrics  as  they  were  his  conception  of  the  earth's 
magnetism,  and  it  was  not  until  1629  tnat  tne  earliest  of 
their  researches  upon  the  former  were  made  known.  In 
that  year  Nicolaus  Cabaeus,3  a  Jesuit,  then  of  Ferrara,  and 
a  philosopher  of  remarkable  ability,  who  had  maintained 
a  school  of  philosophy,  mathematics  and  theology  in 

1  Galileo:  Systema  Cosmicum,  cit.  sup. 

2  Clavorum  Germanorum,  etc.     Florence,  1746,  Epistle  xxvii. 
3Sotuello:  Bib.  Scripta  Soc.  Jesu.     Rome,  1676;  Brucker:  Hist.  Crit 

Phil.     Cabaeus:  Philosophia  Magnetica,  Ferrara,  1629,  p.  18. 


350         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Parma,  produced,  in  the  first  complete  Italian  treatise  on 
the  magnet,  a  record  of  study  which  had  extended  over 
many  years,  and  which,  among  other  things,  resulted  in 
the  first  electrical  discoveries  following  those  of  Gilbert. 

This  is  the  same  Cabseus  to  whom  I  have  already  referred 
in  a  preceding  chapter,  apparently  as  advocating  the  hear- 
say discoveries  of  Leonardo  Garzoni  against  those  of  Fra 
Paolo  Sarpi.  His  name  is  often  mentioned  in  the  histor- 
ical retrospects  of  electrical  progress  which  have  appeared 
during  the  last  century  or  so,  apparently  solely  because 
of  his  having  added  some  more  electrics  to  Gilbert's  list; 
these  being  "white  wax  and  anything  made  of  wax  which 
is  hard  and  may  be  rubbed  .  .  ,  several  gums,  such  as 
gum  elemi,  gum  carab,  gum  from  mastic,  pix,  which  is 
called  Spanish,  and  gypsum,  not  burnt,"  a  slender  enough 
addition  to  the  science,  although  of  interest  as  being  a  real 
advance  beyond  Gilbert.  His  principal  discovery,  how- 
ever, is  of  very  much  more  importance  than  a  few  addi- 
tional electrics,  although  the  fact  seems  to  have  remained 
unrecognized. 

Cabseus,  while  admitting  the  accuracy  of  Gilbert's  ex- 
perimental work  and  of  the  physical  distinctions  which 
Gilbert  points  out  between  the  amber  and  the  lodestone, 
refuses  to  accept  either  Gilbert's  theory  of  electric  effluvia 
or  his  general  dictum  of  the  attractive  quality  of  bodies 
concreted  from  humor.  "His  words,"  says  Cabseus,  "are 
put  together  with  ornate  elegance,  but  I  do  not  see  that 
they  explain  any  mode  of  attraction.  Plenty  of  things 
which  are  hard  and  yet  are  concreted  of  humor  have  no 
attraction,  and  many  things  attract  which  do  not  appear 
to  be  concreted  of  humor."  Floating  bodies  do  not  attract 
by  humor,  but  through  "gravity  and  levity."  If  wet 
bodies  do  adhere,  that  is  due  to  agglutinating  action  of  the 
interposed  liquid.  Cabseus  is  not  here  attacking  Gilbert's 
theories  merely  from  a  spirit  of  opposition.  He  has  found 
some  strange  facts,  and  Gilbert's  effluvium  notion  refuses 
to  be  squared  with  them.  He  does  not  understand  these 


THE  DISCOVERY  OF  ELECTRICAL  REPULSION.       351 

facts,  and  he  interprets  them  wrongly;  but  dissent  from 
Gilbert's  hypothesis  and  the  production  of  a  new  one  in 
supposed  accordance  with  the  new  data  were  inevitable. 

What  had  he  seen  ?  That,  when  the  face  of  a  well-pre- 
pared electric  is  applied  to  the  drawing  of  light  filings  or 
sawdust  or  similar  corpuscles,  they  run  strongly  to  the 
electric,  and  when  they  reach  it  they  fly  back,  not  falling 
off  merely,  but  being  thrown  off  afar  to  a  distance  of  two 
or  three  inches.  And  that  sawdust  groups  itself  upon  the 
electric  u  like  masses  of  hairs,"  the  ends  of  which  fluctuate 
and  waver,  and  finally  these  extremities  likewise  do  not 
fall  off,  but  are  projected  afar. 

In  brief,  he  had  found  electrical  repulsion — the  phenom- 
enon which  Gilbert  said  had  no  existence.  He  had  seen, 
as  any  one  may  now  see,  the  oppositely-electrified  body 
move  to  the  electric,  become  similarly  charged  and  fly  away 
from  it.  This  plainly  could  not  be  accounted  for  by  sup- 
posing material  arms  or  rods  grasping  the  attracted  body, 
and  in  some  unknown  way  bringing  it  to  the  electric;  and 
so  Cabaeus  framed  a  new  hypothesis,  wherein  repulsion  was 
in  fact  the  fundamental  feature.  The  rubbed  electric,  he 
avers,  produces  a  most  thin  effluvium,  which  attenuates 
the  air  and  vigorously  impels  it;  and  this  attenuated  air, 
in  returning  to  the  electric  in  a  gyration,  brings  with  it 
the  attracted  *  body.  In  other  words,  he  thinks  that  efflu- 
vium is  first  "expelled,"  and  thereby  the  air  is  "propelled" 
in  a  wind.  The  wind  comes  back,  entraining  with  it  the 
chaff — sometimes  even  with  such  violence  that  it  seems  to 
rebound  from  the  electric.  Such  was  the  first  recognition 
of  electrical  repulsion  and  the  first  theory  proposed  to  ac- 
count for  it. 


It  will  be  recalled  that  Gilbert  says  that  the  rays  of  mag- 
netic force  emanate  in  all  directions  from  the  lodestone's 
centre,  and  thus  form  an  "orb"  or  "sphere  of  virtue" 
around  "that  great  magnet,  the  earth."  Herein  he  dif- 


352         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

fered  from  Porta,  who  had  insisted  that  the  diffused  virtue 
emanated  from  the  two  poles  of  the  lodestone.  But  this 
was  one  of  the  instances  in  which  Gilbert  allowed  theory 
rather  than  experiment  to  guide  him;  for,  when  he  carried 
his  iron  needle  around  the  terrella,  he  saw  plainly  enough, 
as  Peregrinus  had  seen  centuries  before,  that  it  never 
pointed  to  the  centre,  except  when  it  was  exactly  at  the 
poles.  In  fact,  this  was  one  of  Peregrinus'  methods  of 
finding  the  poles.  At  the  equator,  the  needle  stood  at 
right  angles  to  this  position,  and  between  the  equator  and 
the  poles  it  assumed  various  inclinations  to  the  latter. 
Of  course,  a  needle  placed  successively  in  different  places 
along  a  meridian  of  the  terrella  would  map  out,  so  to  speak, 
the  direction  of  the  lines  of  force  from  pole  to  pole.  But 
Gilbert  did  not  perceive  this  any  more  than  he  saw  the  in- 
consistency between  his  theory  and  his  experiments;  for 
clearly,  if  the  magnetic  virtue  emanated  radially  from  the 
centre  of  the  terrella,  his  needle  should  always  point  to  the 
centre,  and  so  take  the  same  position  at  the  equator  as  at 
the  poles. 

Cabseus,  however,  was  more  keenly  alive  to  the  logic 
of  the  experiment,  and  to  the  fact  that  it  was  at  odds 
with  Gilbert's  supposition.  He,  in  turn,  moving  the 
needle  in  different  positions  along  the  meridian,  sees  it 
gradually  incline  from  the  equator  to  the  pole,  until  at  last 
it  stands  upright;  or,  starting  from  the  pole,  sees  it  grad- 
ually incline  in  the  opposite  way,  until  at  the  equator  it 
has  moved  over  a  right  angle.  Then  he  goes  a  step,  but  a 
long  one,  further.  Instead  of  a  single  needle  moved  into 
different  positions,  take  a  great  many  needles,  he  says — 
little  ones,  mere  particles  of  iron,  iron  filings — and  put 
them  around  the  stone.  Look  at  them  !  At  the  equator 
they  adhere  "prostrate"  to  the  magnet,  but  at  the  poles 
they  "erect  themselves  like  hairs."  Hairs,  branching  and 
curving  away  from  the  poles  as  starting  points.  What  is 
controlling  them?  Certainly  the  emanations  from  the 
magnet;  and,  therefore,  they  must  be  showing  the  true 


CAB^US   ON  THE   MAGNETIC  SPECTUM.  353 

paths  of  those  emanations  leading,  not  from  the  magnet 
centre,  but  from  both  poles. 

Thus,  for  the  first  time,  the  lodestone  was  made  to  write 
its  own  story,  and  it  was  Cabaeus  who  first  recognized,  not 
that  filings  erected  themselves  hair-like  about  a  stone,  for 
Porta  had  done  that,  but  that  they  grouped  themselves  in 
a  definite  way,  branching  from  the  poles,  making  what  we 
now  term  the  magnetic  spectrum. 

Acute  as  he  was,  Cabaeus  failed  to  see  all  that  was  thus 
written  for  him.  He  did  not  perceive  that  the  filings 
curved  from  pole  to  pole.  For  him,  they  swept  outward 
in  paths  ending  always  like  hairs  in  a  brush,  and  thus  he 
depicts  them.  But  there  were  two  brushes;  and  that  was 


'  PICTURE  OF  THE  MAGNETIC  SPECTRUM.1 

enough  to  dispose  of  Gilbert's  notion  and  so  to  serve  his 
purpose. 

Cabseus  is  the  very  Mercutio  of  philosophers.  He  is 
caustic  and  witty — his  dialectic  sword  is  ready  and  needle- 
pointed — his  mental  agility  is  swift.  He  flits  around  Gil- 
bert like  a  wasp,  stinging  wherever  he  can.  But  I  shall 
not  follow  him  further,  tempting  as  the  task  is.  He  may 
be  dismissed  for  bias.  He  was  of  course  savagely  anti- 
Copernican.  As  a  Jesuit  he  wrote  to  sustain  Garzoni 
against  both  Sarpi  and  Gilbert;  and  also  in  the  same  ca- 
pacity, and  with  characteristic  casuistry,  he  denied  that 

1  From  his  Philosophia  Magnetica,  1629. 
23 


354         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

the  earth  is  a  great  magnet,  while  stoutly  averring  that  it 
is  endowed  with  magnetic  properties. 

Thus  far  had  the  Italians  advanced.  They  had  undeni- 
ably made  progress  beyond  Gilbert  in  the  "new  physi- 
ology," had  stumbled  upon  electrical  repulsion,  and  had 
attacked  the  Englishman,  with  more  or  less  success, 
whenever  they  caught  him  wandering  from  the  safe  ground 
of  sure  experiments.  But  what  had  become  of  the  great 
cosmical  theory  —  the  magnetic  inter-relation  of  the 
heavenly  bodies — the  extension  of  the  sphere  of  virtue  into 
the  heavens,  and  the  government  of  the  planets  by  the 
mutual  reactions  of  their  "effused"  spheres — which  Gil- 
bert regarded  as  at  once  the  flower  and  crown  of  all  his 
labors?  For  that  doctrine  there  was  as  little  resting-place 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Church,  as  in  the  inhospitable  breast 
of  Bacon.  There  was  no  lodgment  for  it,  except  among 
the  Copernicans,  and  so  it  fell  into  the  outspread  arms  of 
one  of  them — and  there  gently  expired.  John  Kepler, 
casting  about  for  clews,  clutching  at  guess  after  guess  in 
pursuit  of  proof  of  his  great  laws — trying  to  figure  some- 
thing like  universal  gravitation  out  of  his  inner  conscious- 
ness— came  upon  this  outcast  theory,  and  administered 
upon  its  effects. 

In  his  treatise  on  the  movements  of  Mars,1  we  are  told 
that  the  sun  is  a  great  rotary  magnet  carrying  its— Gil- 
bert's rather — sphere  of  virtue  around  with  it.  The 
planets  are  in  that  vast  whirlpool  and  are  carried  with  it. 
If  it  be  asked — why  should  not  this  great  solar  magnet 
draw  its  satellites  to  destruction  in  its  fiery  mass?  Be- 
cause, is  the  reply,  the  field  of  force  is  made  up  of  fibers — 
filaments — that  are  straight,  that  is,  which  surround  the 
sun,  so  that  the  planets  are  dragged  along  in  these  mag- 
net streams,  like  boats  in  a  maelstrom. 

"Sed  proh  Deum  immortalem!"  a  few  years  later, 
shouts  Athanasius  Kircher,  that  irascible  but  omniscient 
philosopher  of  the  Church  Militant,  losing  his  temper 

1  De  Motibus  Stellis  Martis.     Prague,  1609. 


THE  END  OF  GILBERT'S  COSMICAL  THEORY.       355 

completely  and  banging  the  dust  out  of  Kepler's  immortal 
pages.      "Qusenam  ista  philosophandi  ratio  est?m 

But  Kircher  knew  well  enough  that  Kepler  had  been 
reading  in  the  "Philosophia  Magnetica  of  William  Gilbert 
the  Englishman,"  and  that  his  argument  thereon  was 
that  if  the  earth  had  magnetic  properties,  it  was  "neither 
incredible  nor  absurd"  that  the  same  might  be  equally 
true  of  other  "primary  bodies."2  The  Gilberto-Keplerian 
theory,  however,  had  no  more  health  in  it  than  there  was 
in  the  other  tenet  which  the  two  philosophers  held  in 
common — namely,  that  the  earth  is  alive  and  has  a  soul. 
No  one  cares  to  remember  now  the  odd  vagaries  of  the 
great  student  of  the  stars  who  overthrew  the  old  astronomy. 
He  willingly  renounced  many  of  them  himself  as  his 
knowledge  of  phenomena  grew  wider;  nor  have  they  ever 
dimmed  the  glory  which  all  the  world  accords  to  the  finder 
of  the  laws  whereby  the  planets  move  in  eternal  harmony 
with  the  Almighty  Will. 


"Having  held  and  believed  that  the  Sun  is  the  Center 
of  the  Universe  and  immovable,  and  that  the  earth  is  not 
the  center  of  the  same  and  that  it  does  move  ...  I  abjure 
with  a  sincere  heart  and  unfeigned  faith,  I  curse  and  detest 
the  said  errors  and  heresies  and  generally  all  and  every 
error  and  sect  contrary  to  the  Holy  Catholic  Church," 
wrote  Galileo  Galilei,  in  mortal  terror  of  the  Inquisition; 
that  was  in  i633.3  Twenty  years  before,  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  he  had  asserted  the 
heliocentric  doctrine,  with  no  worse  result  than  a  friendly 
admonition  from  Cardinal  Bellarmine,  and  he  had  agreed 
not  to  promulgate  it  further.  But,  as  the  world  grew  wiser, 
it  smiled  at  the  theological  claims  to  infallibility  in  matters 

1  Kircher.     Magnes  sive  De  Arte  Magnetica.     Cologne,  1641. 

2  Kepler:  Epitome.  Ast.  Copernic.     Frankfort,  1635. 

•Whewell:  Hist.   Indue.  Sci.     London,  1837,  Vol.  II.,  133.     Hallam: 
Lit.  Europe.     Part  III.,  cviii. 


356         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

of  physics,  and  at  last,  in  1620,  the  Church  itself  yielded 
sufficiently  to  sanction  the  discussion  of  the  Copernican 
theory  as  an  hypothesis  merely.  This  gave  Galileo  a  safe 
opportunity,  as  he  believed,  once  more  publicly  to  reaffirm 
his  belief  therein.  He  went  too  far,  and  tried  to  prove  it 
orthodox.  However  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  may 
have  intended  to  deal  with  others,  the  fact  of  his  having 
violated,  as  they  claimed,  his  earlier  promise  gave  them  a 
reason  for  coming  upon  him  despite  the  permissory  decree. 
He  was  the  most  shining  of  all  shining  marks.  To  crush 
him  would  do  more  to  paralyze  independent  philosophical 
thought,  at  least  within  the  pale  of  the  Church,  than  any 
random  anathema  that  Rome  could  hurl. 

The  effect  upon  all  Europe  was  profound.  The  faithful, 
who  found  themselves  in  the  van  of  philosophical  pro- 
gress, stopped  and  drew  back.  The  blight  of  uncertainty 
fell  upon  them.  If,  after  years  of  free  discussion,  Coper- 
nicanism  had  come  to  be  heresy,  inviting  the  dread  visit 
of  the  Holy  Office,  what  then  might  be  safely  taught  and 
studied?  The  light  laughter  at  the  ecclesiastics,  who 
sought  to  govern  Nature's  laws  by  theology,  was  heard  no 
longer  from  the  Protestant  ranks;  but  instead  the  hatred  to 
Rome  leaped  into  new  vigor,  and  sarcasm,  invective,  ridi- 
cule— fierce  and  bitter — came  pouring  forth. 

But  the  blight  persisted  none  the  less.  There  was  great 
force  in  it.  "If  the  opinion  of  the  earth's  movement  is 
false,"  said  Rend  Descartes  grimly,  locking  the  mamiscript 
of  his  Principia  in  his  cabinet,  "all  the  foundations  of  my 
philosophy  are  also  false,  because  it  is  demonstrated  clearly 
by  them  .  .  .  yet  I  would  not  for  all  the  world  sustain 
them  against  the  Church."  And  so  the  book  remained 
unpublished  for  ten  years.  But  when  it  did  appear  there 
followed  a  revolution  in  the  realm  of  thought. 

So  far,  from  Gilbert  onwards,  we  have  seen  the  students 
of  the  lodestoneand  the  electrics  dealing  with  phenomena, 
and  seeking  to  derive  laws  from  experiment.  We  have 
seen  the  inductive  method,  as  it  were,  in  the  air  and  affect- 


DESCARTES.  357 

ing  the  minds  of  all  thinkers,  crystallized  and  formulated 
in  the  language  of  Bacon,  and  then  moving  forward  with 
renewed  and  concentrated  force.  But  now,  there  appears 
a  philosopher  of  the  first  rank,  who  tosses  it  aside  as  an 
instrument  inadequate  for  the  discovery  of  truth,  and  sub- 
stitutes pure  deduction;  a  man  skilled  in  mathematics, 
wherein  Bacon  was  most  deficient,  who  regarded  physics 
not  as  did  Bacon,  as  the  basis  of  all  science,  but  as  merely 
a  reservoir  of  illustrations  of  his  principles;  who  argued, 
not  from  effects  to  causes,  known  to  unknown,  but  deduced 
eifects  from  causes  and  explained  things  seen  by  reasons 
found  by  intuition.  "It  is  not  so  necessary,"  said  Des- 
cartes, uto  have  a  fine  understanding  as  to  apply  it  rightly. 
Better  progress  can  be  made  by  walking  slowly  on  the 
right  road  than  by  running  swiftly  on  the  wrong  one." 
Bacon  expresses  the  same  idea,  but  the  common  ground  is 
reached  by  paths  leading  from  totally  opposite  directions. 
The  ten  years  of  delay  in  the  publication  of  Descartes' 
great  treatise  perhaps  gave  him  the  opportunity  to  make  it 
the  almost  perfect  piece  of  scientific  writing  which  it  is. 
For  unswerving  directness  of  expression,  for  exquisite 
clearness,  for  pertinency  of  example,  it  has  scarcely  a  rival 
in  the  whole  literature  of  physics.  We  have  now  to  see 
how  the  magnet  and  the  electric  were  treated  in  the  phil- 
osophy of  Descartes — a  philosophy  essentially  metaphysi- 
cal, evolving  first  a  clear  hypothesis  and  then  seeking  to 
reveal  thereby  the  causes  of  observed  phenomena.1 

Descartes,  by  his  vortex  theory,  undertook  to  explain 
mechanically  the  solar  system,  the  formation  of  planets, 
the  relation  of  the  tides  to  the  moon,  and  to  subject  the 
laws  of  motion  to  scientific  analysis.2  He  assumed3  matter 
uniform  in  character  throughout  the  universe,  to  be 
divided  into  polygonal  masses.  These  having  a  circular 

1  Lewes:  The  Biog.  Histy.  of  Phily.,  N.  Y.,  1857,  Vol.  II,  1445. 
2Mahaffy:  Des  Cartes,  Edin.  and  Lon.,  1880. 

3Des  Cartes:  Principia  Philosophise  (ultima  editio),  Amsterdam,  1692, 
Parts  3  and  4. 


358         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

motion  grind  one  upon  the  other,  producing  spheres  and 
also  filings  or  parings  due  to  mutual  abrasion  of  the  poly- 
gons at  their  angles.  By  this  means,  there  comes  into  ex- 
istence the  transparent  substance  of  the  skies  (ether),  the 
material  of  luminous  bodies,  such  as  the  sun  and  fixed 
stars,  and  the  material  of  opaque  bodies,  such  as  the 
planets.  The  motions  of  these  parts  are  those  of  revolving 


DESCARTES.1 

currents  or  vortices,  wherein  the  luminous  body  is  at  the 
center  and  the  ether  surrounds  it.  In  the  solar  vortex  the 
planets  are  immersed,  and  with  it  are  whirled  around. 
The  similarity  of  Descartes'  conception  of  a  solar  vortex 
to  Kepler's  notion  of  the  magnetic  whirlpool  surrounding 


1  Reduced  fac  simile  of  the  frontispiece  of  his  Principia  Philosophies. 
Amsterdam,  1692. 


DESCARTES'  THEORY  OF  MAGNETISM.  359 

the  sun  is  obvious.  The  difference  is  the  substitution  of 
Descartes'  whirling  matter,  mechanically  produced,  for 
Kepler's  whirling  filaments  magnetically  produced. 

Among  the  small  filings  which  are  ground  from  the 
revolving  spheres  by  friction,  are  many  which  are  com- 
pelled to  escape  through  the  interstices  between  the  whirl- 
ing particles,  and  these  consequently  are  molded  or  shaped 
into  the  form  of  spirals.  To  the  movements  of  these  spiral 
particles  through  the  pores  or  conduits  of  bodies  adapted 
to  receive  them  are  due  magnetic  and  electric  phenomena. 
These  conduits  are  shaped  to  receive  the  spiral  particles, 
and  extend  through  the  bodies  possessing  them  in  a  direc- 
tion parallel  to  an  axis.  The  spirals  which  can  enter  at 
one  end  of  the  conduits  cannot  enter  at  the  other  end — 
apparently  on  the  principle  that  a  right  hand  threaded 
screw  cannot  enter  a  left  hand  threaded  nut ;  and  also 
because,  in  the  conduits,  there  are  delicate  protruding 
branches  which  allow  the  spirals  to  bend  them  freely, 
while  moving  in  one  direction,  but  become  rigid  and  op- 
pose their  passage  while  moving  in  the  other — something 
like  the  converging  wires  in  an  old-fashioned  mouse-trap. 
The  result  is  that  the  spirals,  say  from  the  North  part  of 
the  heavens,  can  enter  the  conduits  suitable  to  them  at 
the  South  end  of  the  stone,  pass  through  these  passages 
to  the  North* end,  and  then  returning  enter  the  South  end 
again — forming  a  whirlpool  through  and  round  the  stone. 
Similarly,  the  spirals  from  the  South  part  of  the  heavens 
can  enter  the  conduits  suitable  to  them  at  the  North  end 
of  the  stone  and,  in  like  manner,  form  a  whirlpool. 

In  other  words,  Descartes  plainly  sees  that  there  is  a 
force,  not  merely  radiating  from  the  magnet  poles,  as 
Cabseus  supposed,  but  traversing  the  stone  from  pole  to 
pole  in  one  direction  and  then  traversing  the  external 
region  around  the  stone  from  pole  to  pole,  in  the  opposite 
direction.  His  spirals  whirling  about  under  that  in- 
fluence, were  merely  a  device  to  render  its  effect  think- 
able— just  as  were  Faraday's  equally  imaginary  lines  of 


360         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

force.  What  Descartes  really  had  discovered  was  the 
endlessness  of  these  apparent  lines  of  magnetic  force. 

This  idea  of  the  spirals  flowing  in  definite  directions 
through  conduits  in  the  magnet,  he  applies  to  all  magnetic 
phenomena,  of  which  he  finds  therein  an  explanation — often 
with  marvelous  ingenuity.  The  stream  of  spirals  flows 
more  easily  through  the  lodestone  or  iron  than  through  the 
air  or  any  other  substance,  because  the  conduits  in  the  first- 
mentioned  bodies  are  better  suited  to  them.  Wherever 
the  streams  enter  and  leave  a  body,  there  are  its  poles.  If 
a  magnet,  free  to  move,  presents  its  conduit  entrances  at 
an  angle  to  the  stream  of  spirals  from  the  earth's  poles, 
the  force  of  the  stream  is  sufficient  to  turn  the  magnet  so 
as  to  bring  the  conduits  in  line  with  its  path,  and  then  so 
that  the  north  entrances  of  the  conduits  are  directed  to 
the  south  pole  of  the  earth,  and  vice  versa;  thus  the 
directive  tendency  of  the  needle  to  the  poles  is  explained. 
"There  are  always,"  he  says,  "more  spirals  around  the 
magnet  than  elsewhere  in  the  air,  because,  after  they  have 
left  one  end  of  the  stone,  they  find  in  the  air  a  resistance, 
which  causes  most  of  them  to  return  to  the  other  end  of 
the  magnet  whereat  they  enter ;  and  thus  several  remain 
around  it,  making  a  kind  of  whirlpool,  the  same  as  they 
make  about  the  earth.  So  that  the  whole  earth  may  be 
taken  for  a  magnet  not  differing  from  others,  unless  it  be 
bigger :  and  that  on  its  surface  where  we  live  its  virtue  is 
not  very  strong. "  Thus  the  field  outside  of  the  magnet 
is  accounted  for— and  a  definite  conception  is  suggested  of  a 
"resistance  "  to  the  force,  compelling  it  to  choose  a  certain 
path. 

But  there  is  still  more  in  the  foregoing  quotation.  If 
the  earth  is  so  vast  and  great  a  magnet,  why  is  its  virtue 
"not  very  strong?"  The  streams  of  spirals  are  generated 
in  the  earth  in  a  certain  region,  which  last  is  a  spherical 
stratum.  In  passing  to  the  earth's  surface  they  encounter 
another  and  outer  stratum  of  metals,  etc.,  abounding  in 
conduits  suitable  to  them.  Many  of  them  pass  through 


DESCARTES'  THEORY  OF  MAGNETISM.  361 

these  conduits  and  back  to  the  origin,  hence  but  a  small 
proportion  of  the  total  number  of  streams  reaches  the  air. 
That  is  the  first  notion  of  "short  circuiting"  and  "leak- 
age." 

Some  of  the  explanations  are  curiously  ingenious,  such, 
for  example,  as  that  of  magnetic  attraction  and  repulsion. 
If  two  magnets  are  placed  with  iinlike  poles  in  proximity, 
the  spirals  from  one  may  enter  the  conduit  ends  of  the 
other.  Then  the  air  between  the  juxtaposed  poles  is 
driven  out  and  forced  around  to  the  rear  of  the  two  mag- 
nets so  that  it  pushes  them  together.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  like  poles  are  opposed,  the  spirals  from  one  magnet 
cannot  enter  the  conduits  of  the  other,  and  the  spirals 
force  the  stones  apart. 

Iron  is  adapted  to  become  magnetic  because  it  has  con- 
duits suitable  to  receive  the  spirals;  but  it  is  not  normally 
magnetic,  because  the  little  branches  or  projections  in  the 
pores  are  turned  naturally  in  all  sorts  of  directions.  If, 
however,  a  magnet  through  which  a  strong  stream  of  spi- 
rals is  passing  be  approached  to  the  iron,  the  force  of  that 
stream  is  enough  to  drive  the  spirals  through  the  conduits 
in  the  iron,  and  in  so  doing  to  turn  all  the  little  branches 
in  one  way.  After  that  the  iron  constantly  receives 
streams,  and  is  magnetic. 

The  mode  of  answering  that  standing  puzzle,  how  is  it 
that  the  magnet  in  communicating  its  virtue  to  large 
quantities  of  iron  still  retains  its  own  unimpaired?  is  espe- 
cially felicitous.  "There  happens  no  change  in  the  mag- 
net, because  the  spirals  which  leave  its  pores  enter  iron 
rather  than  some  other  body.  In  fact,  they  pass  even 
more  freely  and  in  greater  quantity  through  the  magnet 
when  there  is  iron  around  it  than  when  there  is  none. 
Hence,  instead  of  the  magnet's  virtue  being  in  anywise 
thus  impaired  it  is  increased,  besides  being  communicated 
to  the  iron."  Yet  he  does  not  account  for  the  strengthening 
effect  of  the  armature  in  this  way,  but  agrees  with  Gali- 
leo's hypothesis  concerning  it. 


362         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  foregoing  will  suffice  to  show  the  remarkable  and 
novel  character  of  the  magnetic  theory  of  Descartes. 
Apparently  it  seems  to  have  had  no  other  origin  than  the 
"scientific  use  of  the  imagination,"  but  this  is  not  entirely 
true.  Induction  from  phenomena  forced  its  way  into  his 
reasoning,  despite  his  belief  that  he  was  dealing  solely  with 
his  own  intuitions.  After  he  had  explained,  in  his  limpid 
style,  the  accordance  of  his  hypotheses  and  the  various 
phenomena  of  the  magnet,  which  he  sums  up  beautifully 
in  thirty-four  aphorisms,  he  betrays  the  material  mechan- 
ism which  really  sets  going  all  this  speculation.  I  shall 
let  him  reveal  it  for  himself. 

uNow,  if  one  should  stop  to  consider  how  iron  powder 
or  iron  filings  thrown  about  a  magnet  arrange  themselves, 
many  things  would  be  observed  confirming  the  truth  of 
what  I  have  just  said."  (Observe  the  fallacy,  post  hoc, 
ergo  propter  hoc.)  4'For,,,in  the  first  place,  it  will  be  seen 
that  the  little  grains  of  this  powder  do  not  pack  themselves 
together  confusedly,  but  that  joining  themselves  together 
lengthwise  they  form  filaments,  which  are  as  many  little 
tubes,  through  which  the  spirals  pass  more  freely  than 
through  the  air,  and  which,  therefore,  may  serve  to  show 
the  path  of  the  spirals  after  they  have  left  the  magnet. 
But  in  order  that  the  eye  may  recognize  the  curving  of 
these  paths  the  filings  should  be  strewn  upon  a  smooth 
surface,  in  which  the  globular  magnet  is  half  buried,  so 
that  its  poles  are  in  the  same  plane,  as  globes  are  supported 
in  horizon  circles;  then  on  that  surface  the  filings  will 
arrange  themselves  in  lines  showing  exactly  the  paths 
which  the  spirals  take  around  the  magnet  and  also  around 
the  earth." 

Then  he  continues  further  and  explains  how  the  filings 
group  themselves  around  the  poles  of  the  two  magnets 
when  attraction  or  repulsion  takes  place. 

He  had  seen  all  that  Cabaeus  did  not  see.  He  had  recog- 
nized the  whole  magnetic  spectrum,  the  complete  magnetic 
curves,  and  that  the  lines  of  force  or  paths  along  which  the 


DESCARTES   ON   THE   MAGNETIC   FIELD. 


363 


imaginary  spirals  were  urged  were  exactly  mapped  by  the 
iron  filings,  a  purely  physical  observation.  The  chief 
features  of  the  field  of  force  had  been  observed.  The 
route  of  new  discovery  now  lay  toward  its  properties. 


When  Descartes  reaches  the  electrics  he  shows  some 
unwillingness  to  formulate  theories  about  them,  as  it  were, 
ex  cathedra,  as  he  had  done  in  reference  to  the  magnet. 
It  is  necessary,  he  says,  to  usay  something"  about  these 
bodies — the  electrics — it  was  not  his  original  intention  to 


DESCARTES'  REPRESENTATION  OF  THE  MAGNETIC  FIELD.1 

do  so — and  then  (lame  and  impotent  conclusion  for  the 
man  whose  mind  was  the  reverse  of  the  Baconian  medal) 
he  is  not  fully  certain  why  they  act  as  they  do  until  he 
shall  have  made  "several  experiments  to  discover  their 
nature."  Experiments!  and  by  the  apostle  of  deductive 

1  From  his  Principia  Philosophise.  This  depicts  a  large  spherical  mag- 
net (the  earth)  having  its  poles  at  A,  B,  with  smaller  magnets  I,  K,  L, 
M,  N,  disposed  in  inductive  proximity  The  lines  of  force  in  which  the 
assumed  spirals  arrange  themselves  are  clearly  shown. 


364         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

reasoning.     Why  not  have  deduced   "their  nature"  from 
intuition? 

Yet  the  speculation  whereby  he  endeavors  to  account  for 
electric  attraction  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  all. 
He  begins  by  denying  absolutely  the  notion  of  emanations 
of  an  apparently  glutinous  character  which  emerge,  seize 
upon  the  chaff,  and,  on  retracting,  bring  it  back  to  the 
electric.  There  is  no  warrant  for  such  an  hypothesis,  he 
thinks,  and  for  it  he  substitutes  the  following: 

The  pores  of  the  electric  are  slits  of  extreme  narrowness. 
Nothing  but  the  globules  of  the  most  subtle  ether  can 
enter  them.  But  when  they  are  filled  these  globules  unify 
and  form  little  ribbons  (bandelettes),  which  move  to  and 
fro  in  the  pores,  and  are  molded  to  their  shapes.  They 
cannot  of  themselves  leave  the  electric,  because  there  are 
no  passages  in  the  air  which  they  fit.  But  when  the  elec- 
tric is  rubbed  it  is  heated.  Its  shape,  and  hence  that  of  its 
pores,  is  deformed,  and  the  ribbons  are  crowded  out,  and 
hence  are  moved  toward  other  bodies.  Not  being  able  to 
find  any  suitable  conduits  in  these  bodies  through  which 
they  can  proceed,  they  engage  merely  in  the  pores  of  light 
chaff.  As  the  electric,  after  rubbing,  resumes  its  normal 
condition,  they  shrink  back  and  bring  the  chaff  with  them. 

It  is  a  very  far-fetched  theory,  and  the  ribbons  are  no. 
better  than  Gilbert's  effluvia.  But  there  is  something  novel 
in  Descartes'  commentary  upon  it.  After  explaining  how 
it  is  the  nature  of  the  element,  whereof  these  ribbons  are 
composed,  to  keep  swiftly  moving  within  the  pores  of  the 
electric,  he  says,  uand  sometimes,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
pass  in  a  very  short  time  to  far  distant  places,  never  meet- 
ing a  body  in  their  path  capable  of  stopping  or  diverting 
them.  And  then  meeting  afar  like  matter  disposed  to 
receive  their  action,  they  produce  effects  entirely  rare  and 
marvelous,  such  as  causing  the  wounds  of  a  corpse  to  bleed 
when  the  murderer  approaches,  exciting  the  imagination 
of  those  who  sleep,  and  even  of  the  waking,  and  creating 
in  people  thoughts  which  warn  them  of  events  happening 


ATHANASIUS   KIRCHER.  365 

far  away,  or  presentiments  of  great  afflictions  and  great 
joys  or  impending  peril. "  And  that  was  the  first  attempt, 
many  and  many  a  time  since  fruitlessly  repeated,  to  ex- 
plain the  psychical  things  of  heaven  and  earth,  through 
the  physical  agency  of  electricity. 

Descartes'  Principia  appeared  in  1644,  as  I  have  said, 
after  ten  years'  seclusion.  Meanwhile  it  had  become  in- 
cumbent on  somebody  of  greater  ecclesiastical  influence 
than  Cabaeus,  and  of  more  general  eminence  as  a  phil- 
osopher and  theologian,  to  advance  the  arguments  of  the 
Church  against  the  heresies  of  Gilbert,  Kepler,  Galileo, 
and  other  recusants  of  that  stripe.  The  task  naturally  fell 
to  Athanasius  Kircher,  to  whom  allusion  has  already  been 
made  ;  a  Jesuit,  a  Professor  at  Rome,  and  a  man  of  ency- 
clopaedic knowledge,  great  gullibility,  and  the  author, 
says  Robert  Southwell,1  of  twenty-two  works  in  folio, 
eleven  in  quarto,  and  three  in  octavo.  His  treatise  on  the 
magnet  was  written  about  1639  and  issued  in  1641.  Many 
editions  of  it  followed.  It  adds  nothing  to  the  existing 
knowledge  on  the  subject,  but  it  exhibits  an  astonishing 
collection  of  magnetic  apparatus,  from  perpetual  motion 
to  the  magnetic  toys  which  are  still  sold  everywhere.  It 
was  probably  the  vade  mecum  for  the  practical  magneti- 
cian  of  the  day,  if  any  one  pursued  that  calling. 

Kircher  has'  the  honor  of  giving  to  the  action  of  the 
lodestone  its  name — "Qualitatem  Magneticam  Mag- 
netismus  appellare  placuit."  (The  magnetic  quality  may 
be  properly  termed  magnetism.)  And,  what  is  perhaps 
a  little  surprising,  he  also  invented  the  word  "Electro- 
magnetism" — heading  one  of  his  chapters  on  the  electrics 
with  u  HfexTpo-pa-yvtjTio/ibc; — that  is  concerning  the  magnetism 
of  electrics  or  the  attraction  of  electrics  and  their  causes.'* 

1  Boyle's  works.  London,  1744,  v.  405.  Kircher's  genesis  of  the  solan 
goose  is  classic.  The  eggs,  he  says,  are  laid  in  the  Arctic  regions;  they 
mix  with  the  sea  and  render  it  "  eggified."  Drops  of  sea  water  dash  on 
the  trees  near  the  shore,  and  the  specific  egginess  of  the  sea,  the  natural 
vegetation  of  the  tree,  and  the  influence  of  the  sun,  unite  in  hatching  the 
goose. 


366         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Kircher  was  an  admirable  compiler,  and,  as  a  storehouse 
of  doubtful  facts,  his  work  is  interesting-.  Of  course,  he 
agreed  with  Cabaeus  that  the  earth  is  not  a  magnet,  but 
magnetic.  And  his  proof  thereof  is  impressive.  "How 
vast  its  mass — how  prodigious  would  be  its  effects — what 
could  resist  its  capacity?" — that  is  if  it  were  a  magnet, 
and  not  merely  magnetic.  He  is  a  Professor  of  Mathe- 
matics, and  to  numbers  he  appeals.  Comparing  the  size 
of  the  earth  with  that  of  a  terrella  a  few  inches  in  diam- 
eter, he  staggers  his  reader  with  the  assertion  that  if  the 
terrella  can  attract  one  pound,  the  earth,  if  a  magnet,  can 
attract  over  three  octillion  pounds.  That  is  sufficient  for 
an  exact  idea  of  just  what  the  earth  can  do :  and  so  he 
returns  to  his  Jeremiad. 

"  Woe  to  all  iron  implements,"  he  thunders,  u  woe  to  all 
horses  and  mules  (probably  on  account  of  their  shoes),  woe 
to  cataphracts,  woe  to  Gilbert's  kitchen  utensils."  Why, 
the  rocks  and  the  precipices  and  the  mountains  would  be 
bound  in  an  indissoluble  mass — everything  would  keep 
still!  Instead  of  the  motion  Gilbert  predicts,  there  would 
be  utter  quiet  and  the  end  of  all  movement.  After  that, 
denunciation  follows  naturally — and  strong,  sweeping  de- 
nunciation too. 

"Proprium  est  haereticorum  res  divinas  et  incompre- 
hensas  ingenio  suo  metiri,  quas  nisi  comprehenderint  nee 
credere  velle  videntur  " — duly  clinched  with  a  quotation 
from  Nazianzenus,  Orat,  24. 

But  it  did  not  do  much  good.  The  misbelieving  Prot- 
estants wagged  their  heads  in  derision  as  usual,  and  the 
good  sons  of  the  Church  took  it  all  as  a  sermon,  well 
enough  in  the  abstract  no  doubt,  but  having  no  real  im- 
mediate bearing  upon  the  magnetic  and  electric  problems 
which  they  were  anxious  to  solve :  certainly  none  com- 
parable to  that  which  would  instantly  be  recognized  in 
even  a  look  askance  from  the  Holy  Inquisition. 


GILBERT'S  ERROR  IN  COMPASS  VARIATION.       367 

Now  back  to  England,  where  we  left  Barlowe  and  Ridley 
''animadverting"  upon  one  another  over  their  respective 
claims  to  Gilbert's  experimental  discoveries :  and  the 
navigators  trying  to  turn  Gilbert's  nautical  instruments  to 
practical  account.  But  the  last  were  of  no  avail.  Gilbert 
had  made  a  fundamental  error  as  to  compass  variation ; 
"that  the  arc  thereof  continues  to  be  the  same  in  what- 
ever place  or  region,  be  it  sea  or  continent,  and  is  forever 
unchanging."  It  was,  however,  soon  detected,  not  by  an 
Englishman,  but  in  all  probability  by  Gian  Francesco 
Sagredo,  who  was  Venetian  Consul  at  Aleppo  in  about 
1610,  and  who  was  then  making  observations  himself 
there,  and  having  others  do  the  same,  at  Goa  in  India. 
Vastly  important  as  this  subject  was  to  the  English  sailors 
and  merchants — for  the  safety  of  their  ships  and  the  suc- 
cess of  their  enterprises  ultimately  depended  upon  the 
truth  of  their  steering-needles — little  more  than  rumors  of 
the  changes  in  local  variation  seem  to  have  reached  the 
country  for  many  years.  Burton  sums  up,  in  a  curious 
blending  of  the  old  legends  of  the  magnetic  rocks  with  the 
results  of  the  new  experimental  observations,  probably  all 
that  was  then  known.  He  asks  whether  there  be  a  great 
rock  of  lodestone  which  may  cause  the  needle  in  the  com- 
pass still  to  bend  that  way,  and  what  should  be  the  true 
cause  of  the  variation  of  the  compass. 

"Is  it  a  magnetical  rock,  or  the  pole  star  as  Cardan 
will ;  or  some  other  star  in  the  bear,  as  Marsilius  Ficinus ; 
or  a  magnetical  meridian,  as  Maurolicus  ;  vel  situs  in  vena 
terrcz,  as  Agricola :  or  the  nearness  of  the  next  continent, 
as  Cabseus  will;  or  some  other  cause,  as  Scaliger,  Cortesius, 
Conimbricenses,  Peregrinus  contend ;  why  at  the  Azores 
it  looks  directly  north,  otherwise  not?  In  the  Mediter- 
ranean or  Levant  (as  some  observe)  it  varies  7  grad.  \  by 
and  by,  12,  and  then,  22.  In  the  Baltic  Seas  near  Rasce- 
burg  in  Finland,  the  needle  runs  round  if  any  ships  come 
that  way,  though  Martin  Ridley  write  otherwise  that  the 
needle  near  the  Pole  will  hardly  be  forced  from  his  direc- 


368         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tion.  'Tis  fit  to  be  inquired  whether  certain  rules  may  be 
made  of  it  as  n.  grad.  Loud,  variat.  alibi,  36,  etc.,  and 
that  which  is  more  prodigious,  the  variation  varies  in  the 
same  place,  now  taken  accurately,  'tis  so  much  after  a  few 
years  quite  altered  from  what  it  was :  till  we  have  better 
intelligence,  let  our  Dr.  Gilbert  and  Nicholas  Cabaeus  the 
Jesuit,  that  have  both  written  great  volumes  on  this  sub- 
ject, satisfy  these  inquisitors."1 

Burton,  however,  has  much  to  say  about  the  Coperni- 
cans,  and  he  knows  Gilbert  best  as  a  defender  of  their 
theory,  which  he  classes  among  the  causes  of  melancholy. 
It  is  in  "sober  sadness,"  he  says,  that  he  finds  Digges  and 
Gilbert  and  Kepler  defending  the  notion  that  the  earth  is 
a  moon,  a  conception  which  makes  one  u  giddy  vertiginous 
and  lunatic  within  this  sublunary  maze." 

But  Ben  Jonson,  in  perhaps  closer  touch  with  London 
life  than  the  Leicestershire  clergyman,  discovers  that  the 
making  of  terrellas  into  playthings  for  Tuscan  Grand 
Dukes,  like  other  fads  Italian,  was  being  widely  copied 
among  English  aristocracy,  and  that  magnetism  and  its 
wonders  were  therefore  beginning  to  interest  the  people 
generally.  Therefore  he  wrote  his  comedy,  "The  Mag- 
netic Lady,"  wherein  the  heroine,  "Lady  Lodestone," 

"Draws  and  draws  unto  you  guests  of  all  sorts, 
The  courtiers,  and  the  soldiers,  and  the  scholars, 
The  travelers,  physicians  and  divines, 
As  Doctor  Ridley  wrote,  and  Dpctor  Barlowe." 

and  which  ends  with  the  happy  union  of  the  magnet  and 
armature. 

"More  work  then  for  the  parson.     I  shall  cap 
The  Lodestone  with  an  Ironside,  I  see  " — 2 

1  Burton  :   Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  Part  2,  \   2,  Mem.   3.     The  fii 
edition  of  this  work  appeared  in  1621,  and  five  editions  of  it  appeared  ii 
Burton's  lifetime,  which  ended  in  1639.     The  reference  to  Cabseus  in  tl 
last  sentence  of  the  quotation  shows  that  this  clause  at  least  was  writtt 
after  the  appearance  of  the  Philosophia  Magnetica  in  1629. 

2  The  date  of  this  play  is  1632. 


ELIZABETHAN  POETS  ON   ELECTRICITY.  369 

But  this  last  is  the  only  new  metaphor  which  Jonson 
bases  on  magnetism.  He  has  not  devoured  Ridley  and 
Barlowe  with  that  insatiate  appetite  for  knowledge  which 
shows  its  results  in  his  extraordinary  mastery  of  occult 
subjects  in  the  Alchemist.  There  was  more  poetry,  per- 
haps, to  be  got  out  of  alembics  and  retorts  and  receivers, 
from  incineration  and  calcination  and  reverberation,  than 
out  of  a  stone.  So,  saving  the  two  passages  before  quoted, 
the  magnetic  color,  so  to  speak,  of  his  play  is  factitious, 
and  cheaply  gained  by  giving  his  characters  the  technical 
names  of  Needle,  Compass,  Ironside,  and  so  on. 

But  how  deathless  that  figure  of  speech,  here  again  re- 
curring, which  likens  personal  attractiveness  to  the  draw- 
ing of  the  lodestone!  It  is  almost  as  old  as  civilization. 
It  never  was  more  of  a  favorite  than  during  the  time  of  the 
literary  awakening  in  England,  and  most  of  all  with  Robert 
Greene,  who  fairly  strews  it  throughout  his  now  almost 
forgotten  novels  and  plays.  Clarinda  is  uan  adamant  ob- 
ject to  draw  the  wavering  eyes  of  Pharicles."  Love  is 
uthe  adamant  which  hath  virtue  to  draw,''  and  "what 
adamants  are  fayre  faces!"  l  Sometimes  he  deserts  the 
lodestone  for  the  amber  attraction:  "seeing  you  sit  like 
Juno  ...  I  was  by  a  strange  attractive  force  drawne  as 
the  adamant  draweth  yron  and  the  jeat  the  straw;"2  to 
withstand  the  brunt  of  beauty  is  as  impossible  as  "for  the 
yron  to  resist  the  operation  of  the  adamant  or  the  silie 
straw  the  virtue  of  the  sucking  jeat."3  So  does  Jonson 
once  avail  himself  of  the  electrical  simile: 

"Your  lustre  too'll  inflame  at  any  distance; 
Draw  courtship  to  you  as  a  jet  doth  straws."  * 

But  Shakespeare  never  does.  Only  in  Helena's  reproach 
does  he  use  the  well-worn  figure  based  upon  the  magnet — 

1  Greene:  Mamillia.     1580-3. 

2  Ibid. :  Menaphon.     1589. 
8  The  Carde  of  Fancie. 

*  Every  Man  in  his  Humor.     Act  III.,  Sc.  2. 
24 


370         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

"You  draw  me,  you  hard  hearted  adamant, 
But  yet  you  draw  not  iron,  for  my  heart 
Is  true  as  steel:  Leave  you  your  power  to  draw, 
And  I  shall  have  no  power  to  follow  you."  l 

Perhaps  he  thought  that  his  rival,  Greene,  had  already 
made  the  metaphor  too  common.  Perhaps  by  putting  the 
figure  in  its  single  use  in  the  mouth  of  the  love-sick  girl 
he  meant  to  satirize  Greene's  overworking  of  it.2  Perhaps 
he  was  no  believer  in  the  "miracles  of  science,"  now  so 
called.  uThey  say  miracles  are  past,"  he  remarks,  with 
something  of  the  non-inquisitive  superciliousness  with 
which  a  peripatetic  might  stop  in  his  lazy  promenade  be- 
side the  Lykeum  to  gaze  on  a  gardener  grafting  a  tree. 

1  Midsummer  Night's  Dream.     Act  L,  Sc.  i. 

2 1  append  the  following  : 

"  Beautie  is  the  Syren  which  will  drawe  the  most  adamant  by  force." 
— Mammilia. 

"  For  the  Adamant  drawes  by  vertue  though  Iron  strive  by  nature." — 
Ibid. 

"  Yet  they  have  in  their  eyes  adamants  that  will  draw  youth  as  the  let 
the  straw." — Never  too  Late.  1590. 

"  A  woman's  teares  are  Adamant,  and  men  are  no  harder  than  Iron, 
and  therefore  may  be  drawn  to  pitie." — Ibid. 

Here  are  two  quotations  in  which  the  figure  changes: 

"  Their  hearts  like  Adamants  that  will  turn  no  way  but  to  one  poynt 
of  heaven." — Never  too  Late. 

"  For  the  fingers  of  Lifts  (shoplifters)  are  fourmed  of  Adamant;  though 
they  touch  not,  yet  they  have  vertue  attractive  to  drawe  any  pelfe  to 
them  as  the  Adamant  dooth  the  Iron." — Notable  Discy.  of  Coosnage. 

See  Greene:  Life  and  Works.     Huth  Library.    1881-83. 

Jonson  (Every  Man  out  of  his  Humour.  Act  III.,  Sc.  2,)  probably  car- 
ries the  attractive  figure  to  the  limits  of  hyperbole — 

Would  to  heaven 

In  wreak  of  my  misfortune  I  were  turn'd 
To  some  fair  nymph,  that  set  upon 
The  deepest  whirlpit  of  the  rav'nous  seas, 
My  adamantine  eyes  might  headlong  hale 
This  iron  world  to  me  and  drown  it  all. 

Shakespeare  (Troilus  and  Cressida.     Act  III.,  Sc.  2,)  uses  the  similt 
"as  true  as  iron  to  adamant,"  which  may  refer  either  to  attraction 
directive  tendency. 


THE  ROSICRUCIANS.  371 

(iWe  have  our  philosophical  persons  to  make  modern  and 
familiar  things  supernatural  and  causeless."  1 


If  the  study  of  the  magnet  in  England  had  continued 
nothing  more  than  a  mere  amusement,  the  conditions  for 
the  advancement  and  increase  of  both  magnetic  and  elec- 
trical knowledge  would  have  been  vastly  better  than  those 
which  prevailed  before  half  of  the  seventeenth  century  had 
ended.  All  physical  science  was  under  the  domination  of 
the  theologians,  and  the  rising  Puritanism  was  scarcely 
more  tolerant  of  it  than  was  the  Church  itself.  The 
divines,  says  Robert  Burton,  are  u  too  severe  and  rigid, 
ignorant  and  peevish,  in  not  admitting  the  true  demon- 
strations and  certain  observations  of  the  mathematicians," 
tyrannizing  "over  art,  science  and  all  true  philosophy  in 
suppressing  their  labors  .  .  .  forbidding  them  to  write,  to 
speak  a  truth,  all  to  maintain  their  superstition  and  for 
profit's  sake."2  Nor  does  he  bear  any  better  testimony 
concerning  the  physicians,  the  only  scientific  body  in  the 
community;  for  the  country,  he  says,  is  indeed  overrun 
with  mountebanks,  quacksalvers,  empirics  in  every  street 
almost  and  in  every  village,  calling  themselves  physicians, 
who  serve  to  "make  this  noble  and  profitable  art  to  be 
evil  spoken  of  and  contemned  by  reason  of  these  base  and 
illiterate  artificers." 3  Obviously  such  an  environment  was 
the  worst  possible  for  the  promotion  of  the  truths  of  natu- 
ral philosophy,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  the  very  best 
possible  for  the  cultivation  of  every  item  of  popular  super- 
stition and  ignorance. 

Meanwhile  there  had  arisen  in  Germany*  a  sect  of  fanat- 
ics calling  themselves  Rosicrucians — or  brethren  of  the 

1  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well.     Act  II.,  Sc.  3. 

2  Burton:  Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  Part  2,  §  2,  Mem.  3. 
8  Ibid.,  Part  2,  \  3,  Mem.  i. 

*Mackay:  Memoirs  of  Extraordinary  Popular  Delusions.  London, 
1852,  i.  262. 


372         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Rosy  Cross.  They  followed  Paracelsus  in  attributing  oc- 
cult and  miraculous  powers  to  the  magnet,  and  established 
what  is  now  known  as  the  "faith  cure;"  or  in  other 
words,  they  worked  upon  the  imagination  of  invalids, 
highly  nervous  persons  and  credulous  people  generally. 
They  became  known  later  as  "magnetizers,"  and  attracted 
to  their  ranks  hundreds  of  the  alchemists,  whose  calling 
was  rapidly  becoming  disreputable,  seeing  that  all  their 
efforts  to  transmute  the  base  metals  into  gold  had  invari- 
ably failed,  and  that  they  were  now  manifesting  an  incli- 
nation to  swindle. 

The  magnetizers  pretended  to  transplant  diseases  by 
means  of  the  magnet  and  to  cure  them  by  applications  of 
the  magnet  to  the  body — the  latter,  a  delusion  dating  from 
the  period  of  the  Samothracian  rings.  That  was  "min- 
eral" magnetism.  "Animal  magnetism,"  so  called,  de- 
veloped from  this,  and  did  not  necessarily  involve  the  in- 
terference of  any  actual  lodestone  or  iron  magnet  at  all. 
As  I  have  stated,  the  magnetizers  derived  many  of  their 
peculiar  doctrines  from  Paracelsus;  but  their  principal  de- 
ception, the  magnetic  cure  of  wounds,  rested  upon  the 
imaginary  properties  of  an  unguent  originally  invented  by 
one  Corrichterus,  who  was  physician  to  Maximilian  II. 
The  peculiarity  of  this  compound,  which  contained,  among 
other  gruesome  ingredients,  "the  mossy  periwig  of  the 
skull  of  a  man  destroyed  by  violent  death  in  the  increase 
of  the  Moon,"  was  that  no  magnet  was  ever  put  into  it; 
not  even  the  powdered  lodestone  which  the  ancients  and 
the  mediaeval  leeches  mixed  in  plasters  to  draw  out  iron 
from  the  body.  Subsequently,  it  was  made  of  less  horrible 
materials,  and  eventually  became  nothing  but  iron  sul- 
phate in  powder. 

Among  the  leading  Rosicrucians  was  John  Baptist  Van 
Helmont,  a  Flemish  physician  and  chemist,  still  honestly 
renowned  as  the  first  to  recognize  the  existence  of  differ- 
ent kinds  of  air  and  to  use  the  term  "gas,"  and  as  the  re 
puted  discoverer  of  carbonic  acid.     He  had  been  a  cl< 


VAN    HELMONT.  373 

student  of  Gilbert  and  was  well  familiar  with  Gilbert's 
magnetic  experiments,  references  to  which  he  mingles  in 
his  writings  with  his  own  falsehoods  relative  to  the  cura- 
tive properties  of  the  magnet,  so  as  to  make  it  appear  that 
his  absurdities  somehow  rest  upon  Gilbert's  researches.1 
From  Gilbert's  theory  of  the  amber  effluvium,  he  evidently 
concocted  the  explanation  of  the  effect  of  the  magnetic 
unguent  or  powder  (which,  by  the  way,  was  never  to  be 
applied  to  the  wound,  but  to  either  the  weapon  which  in- 
flicted it  or  to  an  ensanguined  bandage),  wherein  he  main- 
tains that  "the  blood  effused  doth  send  out  subtle  streams 
to  its  fount,"  namely,  the  body;  and  these  streams  or 
"Magnetic  Nuntii"  carry  with  them  "the  Balsamick 
Emanations  of  the  Sympathetick  Unguent  or  Powder." 
So  far  as  the  actual  electrical  effect  was  concerned,  it  did 
not  appear  to  enter  per  se  into  Van  Helmont's  curative 
agencies  except  as  a  direct  means  of  drawing  contagion  out 
of  the  body,  and  "venome  and  bullets  out  of  wounds;" 
but  the  passage  in  his  work  which  prefaces  this  announce- 
ment has  another  and  more  noteworthy  claim  to  fame.  In 
the  English  translation  of  Charleton,  it  is  : 

"The  phansy  of  Amber  delights  to  allect  strawes,  chaffe 
and  other  festucous  bodies,  by  an  attraction,  we  confess, 
obscure  and  weake  enough,  yet  sufficiently  manifest  and 
strong  to  attest  an  Electricity  or  attractive  sign-nature. >>a 

That  was  the  first  appearance  of  the  actual  word  which 
is  now  the  name  of  the  science. 

As  the  Rosicrucians  increased  in  numbers,  they  became 
bolder  in  their  assertions,  insisting  that  magnetic  agents 
not  only  transmit  their  spiritual  energy  into  determinate 
patients,  but  do  so  "at  vast  and  intermediate  distances." 
The  common  people  accused  them  of  witchcraft,  and  be- 
lieved them  especially  inspired  t>y  the  powers  of  darkness. 
Helmont  retorts  with  "experiments,"  and  the  following 

1  Charleton:  A  Ternary  of  Paradoxes  of  the  magnetic  cure  of  wounds, 
etc.     2d  ed.     London,  1650.     (Trans,  of  Van  Helmont ) 
2 Charleton:  Supra,  p.  77 


374         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

one  in  particular,  which  he  declares  "cannot  but  be  free 
from  all  suspect  of  imposture  and  illusion  of  the  Devil."1 

"A  certain  inhabitant  of  Bruxels  in  a  combat  had  his 
nose  mowed  off,  and  addressed  himself  to  Tagliacozzus,  a 
famous  Chirurgeon,  living  at  Bononia,  that  he  might  pro- 
cure a  new  one;  and  when  he  feared  the  incision  of  his 
own  arm,  he  hired  a  Porter  to  admit  it,  out  of  whose  arm, 
having  first  given  the  reward  agreed  upon,  at  length  he 
dig'd  a  new  nose.  About  thirteen  moneths  after  his  re- 
turn to  his  own  Countrey,  on  a  sudden  the  ingrafted  nose 
grew  cold,  putrified,  and  within  a  few  days  drop't  off.  To 
those  of  his  friends  that  were  curious  in  the  exploration 
of  the  cause  of  this  unexpected  misfortune,  it  was  discov- 
ered that  the  Porter  expired  neer  about  the  same  punctilio 
of  time  wherein  the  nose  grew  frigid  and  cadaverous."2 

u  There  are  at  Bruxels  yet  surviving  some  of  good  re- 
pute that  were  eye  witnesses  of  these  occurrences,"  he 
adds,  gravely,  oblivious  of  the  difficulties  of  eye-witnessing 
events  simultaneously  happening  in  Bruxels  and  Bononia. 
"But,"  he  demands,  triumphantly,  "  is  not  this  Magnet- 
ism of  manifest  affinity  with  mummy,3  whereby  the  nose, 
enjoying,  by  title  and  right  of  inoculation,  a  community 
of  life,  sense  and  vegetation  for  so  many  months,  on  a 
sudden  mortified  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alpes?  I  pray, 
what  is  there  in  this  of  superstition?  what  of  attent  and 
exalted  Imagination?" 

Of  course,  there  were  people — the  anatomists  especially 
— who  were  not  quite  satisfied  with  such  evidence,  and 
demanded  more  definite  and  physical  explanations.  But 
Van  Helmont  was  ready  with  the  retort  irrelevant,  which 
in  one  form  or  another  is  still  the  most  serviceable  reply  in 
the  dialectic  armament  of  the  "magneto-therapist." 

"Go  to,  I  beseech  thee !"  he  says  haughtily.     "Does 

1  Charleton  :  Supra,  p.  13. 

2  This  story  is  evidently  the  basis  of  M.  Edmond  About's  novel,  The 
Nose  of  a  Notary.     See,  also,  Tatler,  Dec.  7,  1710,  No.  260. 

3  The  bodily  humor  of  Paracelsus,  see  p.  222. 


VAN   HELMONT.  375 

the  Anatomist,  our  Censor,  happily  know  the  reason  why 
a  Dog  swings  his  Tayl  when  he  rejoyces,  but  a  I^yon  when 
he  is  angry;  and  a  Cat  when  pleased  advances  hers  in  an 
erect  posture.  ,  .  .  The  imbecility  of  our  Understandings 
in  not  comprehending  the  more  abstruse  and  retired  causes 
of  things  is  not  to  be  ascribed  to  any  defect  in  their  nature, 
but  in  our  own  hoodwiukt  Intellectuals." 

This,  of  course,  is  delightfully  subtle ;  indeed,  to 
Hoodwink  our  Intellectuals,  and  then  to  say  that  we  can- 
not understand  the  hoodwinking  deception  because  our 
Intellectuals  are  "hoodwinkt"  leaves  Van  Helmont 
perched  on  a  pinnacle  of  effrontery  which  the  modern  pro- 
moter of  the  electric  and  magnetic  nostrum  has  yet  to 
climb.  "His  experiments  need  to  be  confirmed  by  more 
witnesses  than  one,"  says  Robert  Boyle,1  in  his  solemn 
fashion,  delivering  the  judgment  of  the  next  generation, 
"especially  since  the  extravagances  and  untruths  to  be 
met  with  in  his  treatise  of  the  magnetic  cure  of  wounds 
have  made  his  testimonies  suspected  in  his  other  writ- 
ings." Yet  perhaps  he  deceived  no  one  more  than  he 
deceived  himself,  for  he  invented  an  "Alkahest"  as  a 
remedy  for  all  diseases,  and  claimed  to  have  discovered 
the  means  of  prolonging  life  far  beyond  its  natural  term  ; 
but  none  the  less  left  the  world  in  his  sixty-seventh  year. 

The  Rosicrucian  delusions  regarding  the  magnet  were 
taught  in  England  by  Dr.  Robert  Fludd  ("a  Torrent  of 
Sympathetick  Knowledge,"  says  Charleton)  who  began  to 
practice  medicine  in  London  by  virtue  of  a  degree  from 
Oxford  in  1605.  They  made  headway — why  not,  since 
after  all  they  were  in  full  accordance  with  so  deep-rooted 
a  national  superstition  as  that  the  King's  touch  would 
cure  scrofula?  Why  not,  in  a  country  rapidly  nearing  the 
vortex  of  Civil  War,  under  conditions  when  differences  in 
theology  and  politics  made  a  man's  neighbors  his  foes,  and 
every  man's  sword  his  best  friend?  What  were  all  the 

'Boyle:  Works,  Kd.  by  Birch,  London,  1744  (The  Skeptical  Chemist), 
Vol.  i,  313. 


376         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

magnetic  discoveries  of  the  philosophers  since  the  world 
began,  in  comparison  with  the  marvelous  magnetic  powder 
which  stood  ready  to  heal  the  wounds  of  Edgehill  and 
Marston  Moor?  In  fact  does  not  Walter  Charleton,  King's 
Physician,  positively  tell  of  the  cures  "neer  allied  to 
miracles"  wrought  uby  Sir  Gilbert  Talbot  upon  many 
wounded  in  the  King's  Army ;  chiefly  in  the  Western 
Expedition?"1  And  thus,  during  the  period  when 
Charles  and  Cromwell  were  fighting,  superstition  and 
ignorance  and  war  all  united  to  bring  the  condition  of 
scientific  learning  in  England  to  perhaps  about  the  lowest 
depths  which  it  has  sounded  in  modern  times.  Then, 
perforce,  it  had  to  rise. 


Charleton,  in  his  preface  to  his  translation  of  Van  Hel- 
mont,  mentions  Fludd,  but  regards  as  "the  choicest  flower 
in  our  garden"  Sir  Kenelm  Digby.  This  was  because 
Digby,  being  of  fairly  high  station,  was  the  promoter  of 
the  new  cult  at  Court,  and  also  because  Digby  had  told  so 
many  and  such  variegated  fables  about  the  results  pro- 
duced by  his  vitriol  powder  as  a  cure  for  wounds,  as  to 
leave  the  less  fertile  Charleton  lost  in  wonder  and  admira- 
tion.2 He  alleged  that  he  had  cured  a  person  named 
Howel,  who  was  pinked  in  the  arm,  by  the  simple  expe- 
dient of  rubbing  Howel' s  garter  with  the  magnetic  pow- 
der, and  that  he  could  set  Howel  writhing  in  pain  at 
will  by  dipping  the  garter  in  vinegar.  But  the  new  rise 
of  science  in  England  began  in  the  person  of  Digby.  It 
was  very  like  that  of  a  man  clambering  out  of  a  mud-hole. 
The  adhering  filth  was  most  in  evidence. 

1  For  by  his  side,  a  pouch  he  wore 
Replete  with  strange  hermetic  powder, 
That  wounds  nine  miles  point  blank  would  solder. 

— Hudibras,  ii,  225. 

2  Poudre  de  Sympathie,  Discours  fait  .  .  .  par  le  Chevalier  Digby. 
Paris,  1660. 


SIR   KKNElvM    DIGBY.  377 

Digby  was  adventurer,  conspirator,  naval  commander, 
and  diplomatist.  He  rejoiced  in  probably  one  of  the  most 
extensive  collections  of  personal  enemies  ever  gathered. 
They  included  the  Pope,  the  King,  Parliament,  afterwards 
the  Lord  Protector,  and  so  on  through  all  sorts  of  people, 
down  to  and  including  his  wife's  relations.  The  last  ac- 
cused him  of  murder.  Nevertheless  his  manners  were 
charming.  When  Parliament  locked  him  up,  his  co- 
prisoners  said  that  he  turned  the  jail  into  "an  abode  of 
delight."  His  natural  winsomeness  accounts  for  his  suc- 
cess in  gaining  the  greatest  beauty  in  Europe  as  his  wife, 
and  in  inducing  the  Queen  Dowager  of  France  to  wheedle 
Parliament  into  permitting  him  to  retain  his  forfeited  head. 

But  his  estates,  such  as  they  were,  were  confiscated,  and 
he  went  into  exile  in  France,  and  there  produced,  in  1644, 
a  treatise  on  the  nature  of  the  soul,1  intended,  he  says,  for 
the  instruction  of  his  son,  in  which  he  appropriated  as 
much  of  Descartes'  theory  of  the  magnet  and  the  electric 
as  served  his  purposes,  and  presented  it  as  his  own. 

Digby  was  by  no  means  without  ability,  as  his  career 
amply  proves.  And  in  point  of  scientific  attainments  he 
ranked  high  for  his  time.  He  was  the  first  to  observe  the 
importance  of  oxygen  to  plant  life,  and  he  was  the  first 
Englishman  to  write  of  the  magnet  and  the  electrics  in 
the  light  of  the  knowledge  gained  from  the  continental 
philosophers.  If  he  had  made  his  work  completely  a 
compendium  in  English  of  the  discoveries  and  theories  of 
the  latter,  as  it  was  in  part,  he  would  have  rendered  a  ser- 
vice of  great  value. 

In  place  of  Descartes'  spirals  coming  from  the  heavens 
and  moving  through  the  pores  of  the  magnets,  Digby  sub- 
stitutes atoms,  caused  to  rise  from  the  torrid  zone  of  the 
earth  by  the  sun's  heat,  to  be  replaced  by  others  borne  on 
the  heavier  air  which  flows  to  the  equator  from  the  poles. 

1  Digby:  Two  Treatises,  in  the  one  of  which  Tht  Nature  of  Bodies;  in 
the  other  the  Nature  of  Mail's  Soule  is  looked  into  in  way  of  discovery 
of  the  Immortality  of  Reasonable  Soules.  Paris,  1644. 


378         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

When  cold  polar  atoms  and  dry  equatorial  atoms  meet 
they  conglomerate,  sink  to  earth  and  form  stone,  which 
retains  the  original  north  and  south  flowing  tendency  of 
the  atoms,  and  hence  is  magnetic.  Then  follows  an  at- 
tempt to  account  for  the  magnetic  phenomena  on  this 
theory,  palpably  modeled  on  the  similar  effort  of  Descartes. 

His  electric  hypothesis  is  that  the  electric,  being  heated 
by  rubbing,  breathes  out  steams  which,  as  they  come  into 
the  cold  air,  are  condensed  and  spring  back  "in  such 
manner  as  you  may  observe  the  little  tender  horns  of  snails 
use  to  shrink  back  if  anything  touched  them,  till  they 
settled  in  little  lumps  upon  their  heads."  These  steams, 
meeting  a  light  body,  pierce  into  it  and  settle  in  it,  and  if 
it  be  of  "competent  bignesse  for  them  to  wield,"  they 
bring  it  back  with  them.  It  will  be  observed  that  Digby's 
steams  behave  exactly  like  Descartes'  ribbons.  Both 
make  the  emanations  fly  out  when  the  electric  is  warmed. 
Descartes  brings  them  back  by  the  cooling  of  the  electric; 
Digby,  by  the  cooling  of  the  air. 

A  revival  of  scientific  learning  was  taking  place  in 
France,  and  Digby  had  the  advantage  of  being  there. 
The  ridotti  of  the  Italians  were  being  copied.  Societies 
for  the  discussion  of  scientific  subjects  were  gathering  at 
the  houses  of  Mersenne,  Thevenot  and  De  Monmor. 
There  Digby  met  Descartes,  and  besides,  such  men  as 
Gassendus,  Paschal,  father  and  son,  Hobbes,  Roberval  and 
others  of  less  eminence.1  From  that  membership  came 
the  historic  gathering  of  mathematicians  in  the  Library  of 
Colbert,  in  June,  1666,  and  the  founding  of  the  Academic 
Royale  des  Sciences. 

Thus,  Digby  had  no  lack  of  sources  of  information,  and, 
if  the  generality  of  his  countrymen  could  have  been  induced 
to  believe  him,  he  would  have  come  down  to  us,  perhaps, 
as  a  great  rejuvenator  of  English  science.  But,  unfor- 
tunately for  him,  this  was  not  to  be.  Evelyn,  who  knew 
him,  speaks  of  him  in  his  diary  as  an  "arrant  inotinte- 

1Fontenelle:  Eloges  Historiques  des  Acad.,  Vol.  ii. 


THE  "INVISIBLE  COLLEGE. "  379 

bank;"  and  Lady  Fanshawe  delicately  says  that,  while  he 
made  scientific  experiments,  he  had  an  ''infirmity  of  lying 
about  them."  Still  he  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  produc- 
ing a  philosophical  work  in  the  English  language,  which 
unquestionably  had  no  small  effect  in  helping  the  onward 
progress  of  his  country  in  knowledge  of  natural  science, 
and  of  probably  creating  a  renewed  interest  in  the  physical 
phenomena  of  electricity  and  magnetism — an  accomplish- 
ment which,  although  retarded  by  the  errors  which  he 
taught,  was  at  least  not  neutralized  by  them. 

He  figures  prominently  in  the  scientific  literature  of  his 
time,  and  occasionally  his  opinions  are  quoted  with  much 
deference;  but  this  was  probably  less  due  to  their  original- 
ity and  merit  than  to  their  author's  rank  and  position.  It 
was  a  new  thing  for  a  u  man  of  quality"  to  be  interested 
in  such  matters,  and  still  more  of  an  innovation  for  him  to 
pose  as  an  authority  thereon.  But  the  fashion  spread,  and 
to  Digby  is  due  the  honor  of  leading  in  a  path  into  which 
not  many  years  afterwards  the  king  and  all  the  court 
rushed  pell-mell. 


The  example  of  the  French  societies,  modeled,  as  I  have 
said,  on  the  Italian  ridotti,  was  soon  followed  in  Kngland. 
Shortly  after  the  breaking  out  of  the  civil  war,  an  assem- 
bly of  learned  and  curious  gentlemen,  "in  order  to  divert 
themselves  from  those  melancholy  sciences,  applied  them- 
selves to  experimental  inquiries  and  the  study  of  nature." 
This  was  the  so-called  "Invisible  College,"  which  began 
its  meetings  in  1645  ^n  Dr.  Goddard's  lodgings  in  Wood 
Street,  chiefly  because  there  was  an  artisan  in  the  house 
able  to  grind  glasses  for  telescopes  and  microscopes.1 

It  was  the  second  scientific  society  instituted  in  England 
— the  first  being  the  little  gathering  of  students  and  friends 
which  met,  as  already  noted,  in  the  house  of  Gilbert,  hard 
by  St.  Paul's.  The  new  assemblage  met  to  discuss  pretty 

1  Boyle:  Works,  cit.  sup.     Thomson:  Hist.  Roy.  Soc.     London,  1812. 


380         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

much  everything  except  theology  and  state  affairs.  It  was 
unwise  to  deal  with  the  first — still  more  unwise  to  meddle 
with  the  second,  especially  during  the  Protectorate,  seeing 
that  most  of  the  members  were  devoted  royalists. 

In  the  following  year  Dr.  Thomas  Browne,  another 
London  physician,  published  his  famous  Enquiries  into 
Vulgar  and  Common  Errors1 — a  book  which  represented 
immense  labor  in  experiment  and  the  collection  of  curious 
facts,  and  which  had  many  editions  during  its  author's 
lifetime.  The  popular  reception  which  it  encountered  is 
a  significant  commentary  on  the  changed  conditions  of  the 
times.  Not  only  was  England  flooded  with  copies  of  it, 
but  it  was  speedily  translated  into  foreign  languages.  It 
was  the  first  systematic  and  deliberate  onslaught  upon  the 
popular  superstitions  and  beliefs  which  had  been  accepted 
as  true  for  centuries,  and  was  itself  an  expression  of  the 
skepticism  not  alone  of  the  author,  but  of  the  age.2  Browne 
had  already  written  the  uReligio  Medici,"  a  work  which 
is  now  classic,  and  in  so  doing,  had  become  involved  in 
controversy  with  Digby,  who  had  explosively  replied  in  a 
book  written  in  twenty-four  hours,  part  of  which  time  was 
spent  in  procuring  Browne's  work  and  part  in  reading  it; 
a  proceeding  which  brought  down  upon  his  multitudinous 
inconsistencies  and  infirmities  the  later  censure  of  Browne. 

A  collection  of  all  the  ancient  blunders  and  traditions 
concerning  the  lodestone  fills  Browne's  quaint  pages.3 
Some  of  them  he  refutes  in  a  sensible  way;  others,  in  a 
manner  which  leaves  confusion  worse  confounded.  He 
records  no  discoveries  of  his  own,  and  his  theories  are 
borrowed.  He  followed  the  Jesuits  in  the  belief  that  "the 
earth  is  a  magnetical  body,"  and  he  adds  a  bare  suggestion 
to  the  earlier  ideas  concerning  the  tendency  of  the  earth's 
magnetism  to  fix  its  position  in  space,  by  saying  that  the 
globe  "is  seated  in  a  convenient  medium,"  thus  implying 

Browne:  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica.     London,  1646. 
"Buckle:  History  of  Civilization.     N.  Y..  1877,  i.,  263. 
8  Ibid.,  Chaps,  iii.  and  iv. 


DR.  THOMAS   BROWNE.  381 

that  there  is  some  coaction  between  the  medium  and  the 
magnetic  virtue  of  the  earth,  which  results  in  the  directive 
tendency  of  the  globe,  and  that  the  latter  does  not  depend 
upon  the  effused  magnetic  force  acting  in  some  unknown 
way.  He  has  no  definite  theory  as  to  the  magnetic  virtue, 
but  regards  the  hypothesis  of  Descartes,  and  the  notions 
of  Digby  founded  thereon,  as  equally  worthy  of  belief.  He 
ridicules  Digby's  magnetic  powder,  and  all  magnetic 
unguents  for  the  cure  of  wounds  generally;  and  then,  with 
characteristic  shrewdness,  puts  his  ringer  at  once  upon  the 
real  reason  which  underlay  the  healing  effects  which 
seemed  to  follow  the  use  of  these  nostrums.  It  is  not 
necessary,  he  thinks,  to  conceive  of  spirits  to  "convey  the 
action  of  the  remedy  unto  the  part  and  to  conjoin  the 
virtues  of  bodies  far  disjoined,"  because  only  simple 
wounds  are  ever  healed,  and  these,  when  "kept  clean,  do 
need  no  other  hand  than  that  of  nature  and  the  balsam  of 
the  proper  part."  In  other  words,  he  had  noted  the  rigid 
requirement  of  all  magnetic  healers — that,  while  the 
weapon  was  to  be  anointed  and  dressed,  the  wound  was  to 
be  simply  brought  together,  bound  up  in  clean  rags,  and, 
above  all,  to  be  let  alone  for  seven  days;  and  he  had  seen 
that  simple  flesh  injuries  under  this  treatment  healed 
themselves  by  "first  intention."1 

Browne's  experiments  on  the  electrics  are  repetitions 
of  those  already  well  known.  He  thinks  that  electric 
effluvia  behave  like  threads  of  syrup,  which  elongate  and 
contract,  and,  in  contracting,  bring  back  the  attracted 
objects.  He  arrives  at  the  conclusion  that  no  metal 
attracts,  "nor  animal  concretion  we  know,  although  polite 
and  smooth."  But  the  "animal  concretions"  which  he 
has  tried  are  extraordinary.  They  are  elks'  hoofs,  hawks' 
talons,  the  sword  of  a  sword-fish,  tortoise  shells,  sea-horse 
and  elephants'  teeth,  and  unicorns'  horns" — indicating 
that  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  all  ordinary  substances 
had  already  withstood  the  test  of  experiment,  and  further 

Paris'  Pharmacologia,  23,  24.     Mill:  System  of  Logic,  Vol.  ii.,  402. 


382         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

investigation  ought  only  be  undertaken  among  the  con- 
tents of  museums. 

Browne,  however,  made  one  experiment  which  is  of 
especial  interest,  and  which  requires  from  us  a  glance  back- 
wards, and  hence  a  brief  digression. 


It  has  already  been  noted  that  John  Baptista  Porta  refers 
to  possible  communication  "to  a  friend  that  is  at  a  far  dis- 
tance from  us  and  fast  shut  up  in  prison"  by  means  of 
"two  Mariner's  Compasses  having  the  Alphabet  writ 
about  them."1  This  is  the  first  known  suggestion  of  a 
possibility  which  fretted  men's  minds  for  many  years; 
namely,  that  by  reason  of  a  supposed  sympathy  between 
magnets,  the  movements  of  one  would  be  copied  by  those 
of  another,  no  matter  how  great  the  distance  between 
them;  and  that,  hence,  it  was  necessary  only  to  dispose 
alphabets  around  two  widely-separated  pivoted  needles, 
which  had  both  been  magnetized  by  the  same  lodestone, 
to  cause  the  letter  to  which  the  needle  at  one  station  is 
moved  to  be  indicated  simultaneously  by  the  needle  at  the 
other  and  distant  station.  Of  course,  this  would  now  be 
termed  u  telegraphy ;"  and  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  find 
modern  dial  telegraph  instruments  operating  in  accord- 
ance with  a  very  similar  process. 

Porta's  idea  appears  to  have  been  improved  upon  by 
Daniel  Schwenter,  who,  in  1600,  devised  an  apparatus  of 
some  complexity.  He  divided  the  compass  card,  in  each 
of  the  widely-separated  compasses,  into  compartments  each 
containing  four  letters  of  the  alphabet.  The  needle  in 
signalling  was  intended  to  move  first  to  the  compartment 
containing  the  letter,  and  then  to  indicate  the  especial 
character  desired  by  one,  two,  three  or  four  vibrations. 
Just  how  the  needles  were  to  be  worked  by  the  bar  mag- 
nets or  "chadids"  which  were  employed  is  not  clear;  but 

1  Porta:  Magia  Nat.,  1589,  Book  vii.  Natural  Magic  (Eng.  Tran.). 
1658,  Book  vii,  p.  190. 


EARLY  IDEAS  ON  MAGNETIC  INTERCOMMUNICATION.    383 

attention  was  to  be  called  by  the  needle  striking  against 
a  small  bell  placed  in  its  path.1  Schwenter's  plan  did 
not,  of  course,  bring  telegraphy  into  the  world,  centuries 
ahead  of  its  time.  In  fact,  he  tacitly  repudiates  it  him- 
self in  a  later  publication,2  wherein,  after  learnedly  ex- 
plaining how  Claudius  in  Paris  and  Johannes  in  Rome 
can  thus  communicate  with  one  another,  he  denies  that 
any  magnet  in  the  world  has  sufficient  strength  for  the 
purpose;  although  he  says  "  Thomas  de  Fluctibus"  (prob- 
ably meaning  Fludd)  describes  a  secret  stone  in  his  works 
which  is  possibly  powerful  enough,  but  neglects  to  men- 
tion "where  it  was  found  and  who  found  it." 

At  the  same  time,  no  earlier  instance  having  been  en- 
countered, it  appears  that  we  may  accord  to  Schwenter 
the  credit  of  the  invention  of  the  first  apparatus  for  (pre- 
sumably) causing  a  bell  to  be  sounded  by  the  moving 
armature  of  a  magnet. 

Nine  years  later,  the  feasibility  of  magnetic  communi- 
cation was  elaborately  disputed  by  the  celebrated  lapidary 
and  mineralogist  de  Boodt,3  who  says  that  the  notion  that 
the  magnetic  needle  can  communicate  the  secrets  of 
thought  between  friends  fifty-five  leagues  distant  is  an 
error,  "because  it  is  very  certain  that  the  magnet  which 
has  touched  an  iron  needle  can  cause  it  to  move  only 
through  a  certain  and  very  small  interval,  perhaps  three 
or  four  feet."  After  that,  no  one  seems  to  have  much 
faith  in  the  idea;  and  probably  because  of  his  own  percep- 
tion of  its  absurdity,  Famianus  Strada  selects  it  as  the  sub- 
ject of  his  parody  upon  the  poem  of  Lucretius,  which,  it 
will  be  remembered,  abounded  in  references  to  the  mag- 
net. This  he  presents  with  burlesques  of  Claudian,  L,u- 
:ian  and  other  ancient  poets  in  the  Prolusiones  Acadetnicae4 

Schwenter  (De  Sunde):  Steganologia  et  Steganographia.     Nurnberg, 
1600. 

a Schwenter:  Delicise  Physico  Mathematics.     Nurnberg,  1636. 
3De  Boodt:  Gemmarum  et  Lapidum  Hist.  etc.     Hanovise,  1609. 
*  Strada:  Prolusiones  Academicae.     Rome,  1617. 


384         THE  INTELLECTUAL,  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

— a  work  of  much  literary  skill  and  ingenuity.  Strada  is 
quite  specific,  however,  in  his  instructions.  Two  flat, 
smooth  disks  are  to  be  provided,  marked  around  their  cir- 
cumferential edges  with  the  alphabet.  Iron  needles  are 
pivoted  at  their  centres  and  energized  by  one  and  the  same 
lodestone.  "Let  your  friend,"  he  says,  uabout  to  depart, 
carry  this  disk  with  him,  and  let  it  be  agreed  beforehand 
at  what  time  or  at  what  days  he  shall  observe  whether  the 
dial  pin  (needle)  trembles,  or  what  it  marks  on  the  indi- 
cator. These  things  so  disposed,  if  you  desire  to  address 
your  friend  secretly,  whom  a  part  of  the  earth  separates  far 
from  you,  bring  your  hand  to  the  disk;  take  hold  of  the 
movable  iron;  here  you  observe  the  letters  arranged  round 
the  whole  margin  with  stops,  of  which  there  is  no  need  for 
words;  hither  direct  the  iron  and  touch  with  the  point  the 
separate  letters,  now  this  one  and  now  the  other,  whilst 
by  turning  the  iron  round  again  and  again  throughout 
these  you  may  distinctly  express  all  the  sentiments  of 
your  mind.  Strange,  but  true,  the  friend  who  is  far  dis- 
tant sees  the  movable  iron  tremble  without  the  touch  of 
any  one  and  to  traverse  now  in  one,  now  in  another  direc- 
tion: he  stands  attentive  and  observes  the  leading  of  the 
iron  and  follows  by  collecting  the  letters  from  each  direc- 
tion, with  which,  being  formed  into  words,  he  perceives 
what  may  be  intended,  and  learns  from  the  iron  as  his  in- 
terpreter. Moreover,  when  he  sees  the  dial  pin  stop,  he, 
in  his  turn,  if  he  thinks  of  any  things  to  answer  in  the 
same  manner  by  the  letters  being  touched  separately, 
writes  back  to  his  friend." 

Addison1  copied  from  Strada  this  conceit  and  talked 
about  it  charmingly  in  the  Spectator  and  Guardian,  nearly 
a  century  later,  and  Hakewill2  and  Akenside3  allude  to  it. 

Addison:  Spectator,  241,  1711;  Guardian,  119,  1713. 

'Hakewill:  An  Apologie  or  Declaration  of  the  Power  and  Providence 
of  God.  London  and  Oxford,  1630. 

3  Akenside:  The  Pleasures  of  the   Imagination.     Bk    III.,  v.  325-7 
London,  1744. 


EARLY  IDEAS  ON  MAGNETIC  INTERCOMMUNICATION.    385 

But  it  was  doomed  to  be  ridiculed.  Cabseus1  although 
giving  to  it  an  air  of  reality  by  actually  depicting  tlie  disk 
with  the  alphabet  around  it,  denounces  it  as  an  absurd 
error  and  an  instance  of  the  outrageous  things  which  here- 
tics are  willing  to  credit,  although  they  reject  the  miracles 
of  the  faith.  Galileo  dealt  with  it  in  a  way  which  has 
served  ever  since  as  an  example  to  be  followed  by  the 
skeptical  capitalist  besieged  by  the  sanguine  inventor. 

"You  remind  me,"  he  makes  Sagredo  say  in  one  of  the 
famous  dialogues,2  uof  a  man  who  wanted  to  sell  me  a 
secret  of  communication  through  the  sympathy  of  mag- 
netized needles,  so  that  it  would  be  possible  to  converse 
over  a  distance  of  three  thousand  miles.  I  told  him  that 
I  would  willingly  purchase  it,  provided  he  would  show  me 
an  experiment,  and  that  it  would  suffice  if  I  remained  in 
one  room  while  he  went  in  another.  He  replied  that  the 
distance  was  too  short  to  exhibit  the  operation  of  the  in- 
vention properly;  so  I  dismissed  him,  saying  that  it  was 
not  convenient  for  me  to  travel  just  then  to  Cairo  or  Mos- 
cow to  test  the  matter,  but  that  if  he  would  go  there  him- 
self I  would  remain  in  Venice  and  do  the  rest." 

Yet,  despite  all  the  contradictions  and  ridicule,  the  con- 
ception that  people  far  separated  might  find  a  way  of  com- 
municating with  one  another,  perhaps,  through  the  mag- 
net, or  through  some  means  depending  upon  the  magnet 
or  magnetic  relations,  persisted.  There  was  Cardan's  old 
notion  of  the  magnetism  of  flesh,  which  became  expanded 
by  the  Rosicrucians  into  the  conception  that  if  pieces  of 
muscle  cut  from  the  arms  of  two  persons  were  mutually 
transplanted,  there  would  be  such  a  community  of  feeling 
between  the  parties  that  if  the  alphabet  were  tattooed  on 
the  foreign  flesh  in  the  arm  of  each  it  would  be  simply 
necessary  for  one  individual  to  prick  with  a  needle  the 
appropriate  letter  on  his  own  arm  to  cause  a  similar  sensa- 

1  Cabseus:  Philosophia  Magnetica.     Ferrara,  1629,  pp.  3O~-6. 

2 Galileo:  Dialogo  Intorno  ai  Due  Massimi  System!  del  Mondo,  etc., 

25 


386         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tion  at  the  corresponding  letter  in  the  arm  of  the  other 
person.1  Van  Helmont's  story  of  the  artificial  nose  belongs 
to  the  same  category. 


For  such  conceits  as  the  flesh  magnet  and  the  sympathies 
attributed  thereto,  Browne  has  no  stomach.  He  regards 
them  all  as  uof  that  monstrosity  that  they  refute  them- 
selves in  their  recitements. "  But  the  two  needles  and  their 
alphabetical  dials  he  evidently  thinks  are  not  to  be  dis- 
posed of  with  mere  expression  of  disbelief  or  even  contempt. 
There  is  a  concreteness  about  that  apparatus  which  makes 
strongly  for  its  toleration.  It  is  very  simple,  and  the  needle 
of  the  compass  certainly  does  obey  the  earth  from  a  long 
distance,  and  go  to  certain  marked  indications  on  a  card, 
all  of  which  are  conditions  closely  allied  to  those  in  the 
sympathetic  dials.  If  Browne  had  lived  before  Gilbert, 
he  would  have  written  a  dissertation,  very  subtle  and  very 
ingenious,  no  doubt,  which  would  have  demonstrated  that, 
from  the  nature  of  things  and  the  canons  of  Aristotle  and 
the  names  commonly  bestowed  on  the  phenomena  and  sub- 
stances involved,  the  whole  alleged  effect  could  not  be. 
But  Gilbert  had  lived  and  passed  away,  and  this  thing 
which  "was  whispered  through  the  world  with  some  at- 
tention, credulous  and  vulgar  auditors  readily  believing 
it,  and  more  judicious  and  distinctive  heads  not  altogether 
rejecting  it,"  could  not  be  satisfactorily  dismissed  in  any 
such  manner.  And  therefore  Browne,  for  the  first  time, 
tested  the  sympathetic  dials  by  actual  experiment.2 

"Having  expressly  framed  two  circles  of  wood,"  he  says, 
"and,  according  to  the  number  of  Latin  letters,  divided 

•  Fahie.  A  History  of  Elec.  Telegy.  to  the  year  1837.  Lond.,  1884,  p. 
19.  An  excellent  bibliography  of  the  early  works  on  the  subject  is  given 
here  on  p.  20,  See  also 

Bertelli:  Di  un  supposto  sistema  Telegrafico  Magnetico  .  .  .  dei  secoli 
xvi.  e  x\ ii.  Rome,  1868. 

2  Browne:  Pseudodoxia  Epidemica,  cit.  sup. 


BROWNE'S  EXPERIMENTS.  387 

each  into  twenty-three  parts,  placing  therein  two  stiles  or 
needles  composed  of  the  same  steel,  touched  with  the  same 
lodestone  and  at  the  same  point;  of  these  two,  whensoever 
I  removed  the  one  although  but  the  distance  of  half  a  span, 
the  other  would  stand  like  Hercules'  pillars,  and  (if  the 
earth  stand  still)  have  surely  no  motion  at  all.  Now,  as  it 
is  not  possible  that  any  body  should  have  no  boundaries  or 
sphere  of  its  activity,  so  it  is  improbable  it  should  effect 
that  at  a  distance  which  nearer  at  hand  it  cannot  at  all 
perform." 

That  gave  its  quietus  to  Porta's  ingenious  conjecture, 
but  still  not  to  the  idea  which  was  the  life  and  soul  of  it. 
"Now,  though  this  desirable  effect  possibly  may  not  yet 
answer  the  expectation  of  inquisitive  experiment,"  says 
Glanvil  twenty  years  later,  uyet  'tis  no  despicable  item 
that  by  some  other  such  way  of  magnetick  efficiency  it 
may  hereafter  with  success  be  attempted  ...  to  confer  at 
the  distance  of  the  Indies  by  sympathetic  contrivances  may 
be  as  usual  to  future  times  as  to  us  in  a  literary  correspond- 
ence." l  And  again  and  again  in  after  years  this  persistent, 
all-pervading  world-notion,  which,  perhaps,  begins  with 
the  Scriptural,  u  Canst  thou  send  lightnings  that  they 
may  go  and  say  unto  thee,  here  we  are,"  reappeared. 
u  Whatever  the  way  or  the  manner  or  the  means  of  it  may 
be,"  says  Beal,2  writing  to  Boyle  in  1670,  in  words  which 
sound  like  those  of  a  seer,  "we  are  sure  that  we  have  a 
perception  at  great  distance,  and  otherwise  than  by  our 
known  senses,  and  sometimes  a  secret  anticipation  of 
things  future,  which  cannot  be  without  correspondence 
with  some  causative.  Whether  aerial,  more  refinedly  ethe- 
real, intelligent  or  astral,  whether  by  any  one  or  other,  or 
all  of  these  strange  expedients,  we  are  sure  of  the  great 
and  strange  effects;  and  when  we  see  how  quickly  the 
sunbeams  do  pass  to  the  borders  of  this  vertex,  we  may 
well  imagine  that  our  spirits  may  hold  an  intercourse  at 

1  Glanvil:  Scepsis  Scientifica.     Lond.,  1665,  chaps,  xix.  and  xxi. 
2  Boyle:  Works,  cit.  sup. 


388         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

like  distance  with  equal  dispatch  in  mental  and  spiritual 
affairs.' y  So  went  on  germination  of  the  telegraph;  but 
the  plant  was  of  slow  growth,  and  nearly  a  century  had 
yet  to  elapse  before  it  began  to  expand  and  fructify. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  quaint  old  town  of  Magdeburg,  in 
Germany,  the  Herr  Burgomaster  has  been  laboring  with 
things  stranger  than  any  that  the  alchemists  knew  ;  and 
Balthasar  de  Monconys,1  Lieutenant  of  Police  from  Lyons, 
having  set  out  for  the  east  to  discover  vestiges  of  the  phil- 
osophy of  Trismegistus  and  Zoroaster,  has  heard  of  these 
doings  and  has  gone  far  out  of  his  way  to  learn  of  them. 
And  thus,  in  October  of  1663,  Monconys  is  told  of  a 
u globe  made  of  nine  minerals"  which  plays  with  feathers 
u  continually  and  without  end,"  and  which  shows  why  the 
moon  always  looks  at  us  with  the  same  face.  Nor  was  he 
surprised  thereat;  for  what  could  not  be  done  by  the  man 
who  had  put  two  empty  hemispheres  of  copper,  not  two 
feet  in  diameter,  face  to  face,  and  then  proved  to  the  Em- 
peror Ferdinand  and  all  the  princes  sitting  in  the  Diet  at 
Ratisbon  that  thirty  horses,  (fifteen  attached  to  each  hemi- 
sphere, and  the  two  huge  teams  tugging  in  opposite  direc- 
tions), could  not  pull  them  apart?  Verily,  he  was  a  won- 
derful wizard— the  Herr  Burgomaster.  The  Magdeburgers 
said  that  he  had  a  devil's  contrivance  which  told  him  when 
the  storms  were  coming,  and  that  while  his  prophecies 
were  always  right  it  was  dangerous  to  live  near  him — for 
the  thunder  one  day  fell  on  his  house  and  broke  a  lot  of 
his  infernal  toys,  and  heaven  might  serve  him  worse  next 
time  for  tampering  with  the  spirits  of  the  air,  which  he 
shut  up  and  tortured  in  his  tubes  and  globes.'2 

But  the  Burgomaster  knew  his  Magdeburgers  and  they 
him,  and  there  was  little  danger  that  the  fellow-officials 
with  whom  he  dined  and  smoked  and  joked  would  hale 
him  before  their  courts  for  sorcery.  Besides,  he  was  coun- 
cillor to  his  most  serene  and  potent  Highness,  the  Elector 

1  Monconys:  Voyages.     Lyons,  1665. 

2  Phil.  Trans.     Abridgt,  vol.  ii.,  29. 


OTTOncGUERICKE 

Serenifs  ~  Potentifs  Elector  Brandet 
Confiliarius  *  Civrtat:  Magnet. Confiil 


From 


OTTO  VON  GUERICKE.  389 

of  Brandenburg,  and  lie  had  other  titles  bespeaking  great 
consideration.  But,  at  the  present  time,  a  couple  of  cen- 
turies later,  the  moths  have  eaten  all  these  dignities  and 
we  know  Otto  von  Guericke  best  as  one  of  the  first  and 
greatest  of  the  electrical  discoverers. 

Now,  we  have  to  find  out  what  Monconys  saw. 


Otto  von  Guericke1  was  Burgomaster  of  Magdeburg  for 
thirty-five  years.  He  was  a  many-sided  man.  He  had 
studied  law  at  L,eipsic,  Helmstadt  and  Jena,  and  mathe- 
matics at  Leyden,  and  had  travelled  through  France  and 
England.  He  had  established  himself  as  an  engineer  at 
Erfurt,  when  the  attractions  of  an  official  career  proved 
more  potent  than  those  of  his  profession,  and  he  entered 
political  life  in  1627  as  an  alderman  of  his  native  town. 
But  he  conld  not  divorce  himself  from  his  interest  in  phy- 
sical science;  and  so,  throughout  his  long  public  service, 
he  made  work  in  his  laboratory  his  relaxation  and  his 
play:  just  as  President  Jefferson  found  pleasure  in  experi- 
menting upon  the  conduction  of  heat  through  fabrics  amid 
the  engrossing  cares  of  the  White  House,  or  as  Charles  II., 
discovered  in  physical  experiments  conducted  in  his  closet 
at  Whitehall,  a  welcome  relief  from  the  feverish  excite- 
ments and  frivolity  of  his  court. 

In  the  history  of  pneumatics,  von  Guericke  stands  in  the 
highest  place.  He  invented  the  air-pump  in  1650,  and 
discovered  that  in  a  vacuum  animals  cannot  exist,  and  all 
bodies  fall  with  equal  rapidity.  He  recognized  that  gases 
have  weight,  and  by  means  of  the  u  Magdeburg  hemi- 
spheres," already  alluded  to,  he  showed  how  great  the 
force  due  to  pressure  exerted  by  the  air,  by  comparing  it 
with  the  contrary  pulling  strain  of  horses.  He  invented 
the  air-balance  and  the  anemoscope,  and,  by  such  means, 
weighing  the  air,  he  was  enabled  to  make  his  astonishing 

Hoffman:  Otto  von  Guericke.     Magdebourg,  1874.     Paschius:  De  In- 
mtis,  vii.,  §  29.     Fontenelle  :  Eloges  Hist,  des  Acad.,  vol.  ii. 


390         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

predictions  of  the  weather.  Besides  all  this,  he  made  the 
remarkable  electrical  experiments  and  discoveries  now  to 
be  described. 

Most  of  the  long  and  arduous  researches  whereby  physi- 
cal science  has  become  established  have  been  undertaken, 
not  for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  results  previously  un- 
known, but  in  the  hope  that  their  outcome  would  afford 
support  for  some  preconceived  and  favorite  hypothesis. 
In  this  way,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  Gilbert  was 
led  to  his  magnetic  and  electric  investigations,  trusting  to 
find  in  them  corroboration  for  his  cosmical  theory.  So 
Cabseus  undertook  similar  studies  in  the  hope  of  eliciting 
evidence  which  would  break  down,  not  only  Gilbert's  con- 
ception, but  the  Copernican  doctrine  generally.  So  ob- 
servation of  the  magnetic  spectrum  and  its  phenomena 
resulted  in  the  mentally  conceived  spirals  of  Descartes  and 
their  percolation  through  and  grouping  about  the  mag- 
net. So,  in  another  field,  the  alchemists  established  the 
science  of  chemistry  through  their  futile  experiments  in 
search  of  the  transmutation  of  metals. 

In  dealing  with  the  ancient  and  mediaeval  philosophers 
we  have  seen  that  they  seldom  narrowed  their  observation 
down  to  specific  matters.  Their  treatises,  as  a  rule,  were 
on  the  Nature  of  Things — De  Natura  Rerum — from  the 
days  of  Lucretius  onward,  and  there  was  a  time  when  a 
writer,  such  as  St.  Isidore,  might  reasonably  compress  all 
that  was  known  about  everything  in  natural  philosophy, 
both  celestial  and  terrestial,  into  a  very  moderate-sized  tome. 
As  sublunary  things,  however,  became  familiar  and  com- 
monplace, philosophical  speculations  began  to  change,  and 
finally,  during  the  sixteenth  century,  the  fundamental 
hypothesis  was  one  pertaining,  not  to  the  nature  of  things 
in  general,  but  to  the  nature  of  the  extra-mundane  regions 
and  of  the  worlds  moving  therein.  Hence  to  the  three 
great  theories  of  Ptolemy,  Copernicus,  and  Tycho  Brahe 
were  added  sometimes  new  hypotheses,  sometimes  new 
supporting  arguments,  just  in  proportion  as  new  knowl- 


OTTO  VON  GUERICKE.  391 

edge,  based  on  physical  experimenting,  gave  new  basis  for 
one  or  the  other.  Therefore  when  a  man  had  made  novel 
discoveries,  instead  of  contenting  himself  with  stating 
simply  what  he  had  done  and  how  he  had  done  it,  and 
leaving  other  people  to  make  and  find  useful  applications 
of  the  new-found  information,  he  was  far  more  likely  to 
begin  his  dissertation  either  with  a  new  cosmical  hypothe- 
sis or  a  re-statement  of  his  favorite  old  one,  and  then  to 
adduce  the  discoveries  as  establishing  the  new  notion  or 
as  affording  additional  proof  to  the  preferred  doctrine. 
The  suppression,  by  the  way,  of  this  discursiveness,  as 
broad  as  the  universe  itself,  and  the  limitation  of  scien- 
tific treatises  to  matters  strictly  germane  and  relevant  to 
their  subjects,  is  one  of  the  great  achievements  of  the 
Royal  Society  and  of  the  various  philosophical  bodies 
modeled  after  it. 

Consequently,  as  might  be  expected,  when  von  Guericke 
gave  the  results  of  his  pneumatic  and  electrical  experi- 
ments to  the  world,  he  did  it  in  a  treatise  on  Vacuous 
Space  "in  quo  totum  Mundi  Systemi  consistit."1  His 
first  book  deals  with  the  universe  generally,  and  his  sec- 
ond with  interstellar  space.  His  own  discoveries  occupy 
the  third  and  fourth  books,  and  then  he  gets  back  to  vast 
conceptions  again,  and,  in  successive  divisions  of  his  work, 
considers  the  'earth  and  moon,  comets  (whereof  it  may  be 
noted  in  passing  he  first  pointed  out  the  periodicity),  the 
planets  and  the  fixed  stars.  We  need  not  here  occupy 
ourselves  with  his  astronomical  or  cosmical  notions,  and 
the  detailed  history  of  his  beautiful  discoveries  in  pneu- 
matics belongs  to  a  different  field  in  physics  from  that  in 
which  we  are  now  wandering.  Hence  the  matters  which 
interest  us,  and  those  which  astonished  Monconys  more 
than  two  centuries  ago,  are  also  set  forth  in  the  book, 
wherein  are  treated  "the  mundane  virtues  and  other  things 
thereupon  depending." 


Guericke;    Experimenta  Nova  (ut  vocantur)  Magdeburgica  de 
Vacuo  Spatio.     Amsterdam,  1672. 


392          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

A  few  words  of  preface  may  be  granted,  because  von 
Guericke  has  ideas  of  his  own  about  these  virtues,  which, 
together  with  life  and  matter,  enter  into  the  constitution 
of  all  bodies.  They  are  effluvia — sometimes  corporeal, 
such  as  the  air — sometimes  incorporeal,  or  more  properly 
highly  diffused,  such  as  those  which  emanate  from  a  body, 
and  surrounding  it,  form  its  orb  or  sphere  of  virtue.  Of 
the  incorporeal  virtues  there  are  many — not  all  percepti- 
ble, because  of  defects  in  our  senses;  but  those  which  we 
are  best  able  to  recognize  come  from  the  earth  or  from  the 
sun.  Thus  from  the  earth  arise  "impulsive  virtue,"  "di- 
rective virtue,"  "turning  virtue,"  "sounding  virtue," 
and  soon;  while  the  sun  yields  "light  and  coloring  vir- 
tue," and  the  moon  "frost-making  virtue."  Then  there 
are  other  virtues  derived  from  the  planets,  which  the 
astrologers  call  "influences." 

All  of  these  virtues  are  alike  in  that  they  can  act  at  a 
distance.  They  join  themselves  to  neighboring  bodies, 
which  simultaneously  recognize  them;  but  if  any  virtue 
meets  a  body  not  suited  to  it,  it  is  repelled  or  reflected, 
and  the  repercussions  may  continue  until  the  virtue  is  ex- 
hausted and  ceases.  The  more  solid  the  body,  the  more 
virtue  it  is  capable  of  receiving.  Certain  virtues  accord 
with  certain  bodies  and  there  is  mutual  suitability.  They 
are  excited  therein  by  attrition,  collision,  touch,  vibration, 
and  so  on. 

Von  Guericke's  "impulsive  virtue,"  so  called,  appears 
to  be  simply  momentum.  "Conservative  virtue"  is  grav- 
ity. "Directing  virtue"  is  Gilbert's  verticity,  the  mag- 
netic force  which  he  thought  adjusted  the  earth's  axis  in 
space  and  prevented  its  nutation.  "Turning  virtue"  is 
any  impressed  rotary  motion;  von  Guericke  gives  as  an 
example  a  man  revolving  on  his  heel.  "Sounding  vir- 
tue" is  that  which  causes  the  sensation  of  sound,  and  is 
produced  "by  the  friction  of  bodies."  "Heating  virtue" 
is  heat  due  to  subterranean  fire  or  "friction  of  the  sun's 
virtue."  " Lighting  virtue"  is  the  sensation  of  light  and 


VON  GUERICKE' s  COSMICAL  THEORIES.          393 

color.  It  is  clear  that  von  Guericke  perceives  that  there 
are  certain  resemblances  between  the  phenomena  due  to 
the  play  of  natural  forces,  and  has,  perhaps,  a  hazy  notion 
of  some  correlation  between  them — of  the  development  of 
one  phenomenon  from  another,  as  the  production  of  heat 
by  friction  of  the  sun's  virtue.  Hence  he  is  seeking,  in 
the  language  of  the  arithmetics,  to  reduce  all  these  factors 
to  a  common  denominator.  This  he  finds  in  the  idea  of 
"virtues."  They  are  all  different,  these  natural  happen- 
ings— light  and  sound  and  magnetism  and  heat  and  grav- 
ity— but  none  the  less  they  are  all  "virtues"  emanating 
from  a  physical  body,  such  as  the  earth  or  the  sun,  and  as 
such  they  are  as  necessary  a  concomitant  of  that  body  as 
the  matter  whereof  it  is  composed. 

This  is  von  Guericke's  main  hypothesis,  corresponding 
to  the  magnetic  theory  of  Gilbert.  But  he  differs  squarely 
from  Gilbert  in  the  belief  that  the  earth  is  a  great  magnet. 
The  globe,  he  says,  is  moved  by  the  rays  of  the  sun  and 
its  own  intrinsic  turning  virtue;  by  two  forces,  and  hence 
it  would  naturally  be  controlled  unevenly.  Therefore  it 
is  given  by  nature  a  directive  virtue  (whereof  its  poles 
are  merely  termini),  "so  that  it  does  not  sway  this  way 
and  that  in  its  position,  not  even  on  account  of  the  rubbing 
of  the  rays  of  the  sun,  and  so  that  it  does  not  wabble  or 
nutate  in  its*  own  daily  rotation,  and  change  the  times  of 
the  year,  length  of  days,"  etc.  This  directive  virtue  is 
not  inherent  to  the  earth  itself,  but  is  imparted  to  it  by 
nature,  which  does  nothing  in  vain,  and  for  the  express 
purpose  of  preventing  wabbling.  Consequently  he  con- 
cludes that  Gilbert  is  wrong  in  regarding  the  globe  as 
intrinsically  a  big  magnet. 

There  is,  however,  still  another  virtue,  but  which  is  of 
higher  import  than  all  of  the  others.  Von  Guericke  goes 
back  to  Aristarchus,  and  says  that  he,  believing  the  earth 
to  be  animate,  revised  the  opinion  of  those  who  thought  that 
it  had  both  an  attractive  and  a  repelling  faculty.  "This," 
says  von  Guericke,  "appears  harmonious  with  reason, 


394         TH£   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

for  if  the  earth  has  the  power  of  attracting  those  things 
which  are  agreeable  to  it,  it  will  likewise  have  the  power 
of  repelling  those  things  which  injure  it  and  do  not  please 
it;"  and  specifically,  if  one  planet  "impresses  its  contrary 
influence  upon  another,  that  other  resists  the  same  by  its 
own  repelling  virtue."  For  a  modern  philosopher  and  a 
skillful  experimentalist,  this  notion  of  an  expulsive  virtue 
or  repelling  force  actually  existing  in  the  earth  was  a  new 
one.  Clearly,  moreover,  he  is  not  evolving  that  supposi- 
tion out  of  his  inner  consciousness,  but  because  he  has 
some  tangible  physical  reason  for  it.  Observe  first,  that 
he  has  imputed  to  the  earth  not  one,  but  many  different 
virtues;  second,  that  he  has  denied  that  it  is  by  substance 
a  magnet;  and,  third,  that  he  gives  it  this  new  repelling 
effect.  Now  why  is  he  doing  this? 

Let  me  recall  here  a  peculiarity  in  mode  of  reasoning 
common  to  all  of  these  old  philosophers — save  perhaps 
Gilbert — and  that  is,  they  always  present  their  theory  first, 
and  then  detail  some  physical  phenomena,  usually  new 
ones,  which  they  think  sustain  it — the  idea  being  to  lead 
the  student  to  suppose  that  the  working  of  the  superior 
brain  alone  has  produced  the  conception,  the  truth  of 
which  detected  nature  is  afterwards  compelled  to  admit. 
This  is  not  only  putting  the  cart  before  the  horse,  but  also 
causing  it  to  appear  that  the  vehicle  tows  the  animal. 
In  that  way  Descartes  puts  his  spiral-ribbon  theory  first, 
and  his  observation  of  the  iron  filings  in  the  magnetic 
spectrum  last;  Cabaeus  his  rebounding-effluvia  hypothesis 
before  the  repelled-chaff  experiment. 

Von  Guericke  is  evidently  following  the  same  course;  or 
in  other  words,  he  has  found  some  strange  and  novel 
effects,  and  all  this  new  theory  about  the  virtues,  etc., 
rests  on  that  basis;  while,  like  his  predecessors,  he  fails  to 
perceive  that  the  credit  and  the  honor  due  to  him  who  is 
gifted  with  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear  what  the  laws  of 
nature  are  revealing  cannot  be  enhanced  by  an  effort  to 
make  the  world  believe  that  the  true  source  of  it  all  is  not 
nature,  but  himself. 


THE  FIRST  ELECTRICAL  MACHINE.  395 

Von  Guericke's  position  is  that  if  the  earth  is  by  sub- 
stance a  magnet,  it  must  have  all  the  magnetic  proper- 
ties— not  only  directive  virtue  or  verticity,  but  also  the 
attractive  magnetic  power.  But  in  comparing  what  he 
calls  the  conservative  virtue  of  the  earth  with  its  directive 
virtue,  he  points  out  that  "the  former  attracts  all  bodies 
not  only  in  the  regions  of  the  poles  but  everywhere.  The 
bodies  attracted  are  not  .changed  but  are  held  by  a  conser- 
vative force." 

In  other  words,  von  Guericke  believes  that  the  magnetic 
quality  of  the  earth  simply  adjusts  and  holds  its  axis  in 
space  and  exerts  no  attractive  force  on  exterior  bodies. 
The  attractive  force  which  the  earth  does  manifest  is  grav- 
ity, and  that  is  owing  to  the  "conservative  virtue."  And 
the  "conservative  virtue"  is  the  same  thing  as  electrical 
attraction,  which  he  says  is  exerted  not  like  magnetic  at- 
traction merely  at  the  poles  but  at  all  points  of  the  electric. 
So,  according  to  him,  gravity  is  not  correlated  to  the 
earth's  magnetism,  but  is  simply  the  electrical  attraction 
exerted  by  the  earth  upon  exterior  objects,  and  he  believes 
it  to  be  due  to  the  rubbing  of  the  globe  by  the  sun's  rays. 

Note  the  difference  between  this  conception  and  Gil- 
bert's dictum  that  the  "matter  of  the  earth's  globe  is 
brought  together  and  held  together  electrically."  Von 
Guericke's  idea  is  that  the  earth,  as  a  mass,  electrically 
attracts,  not  only  its  own  matter,  but  also  outside  matter. 

Now  what  Monconys  saw  was  the  experiment  which 
illustrated  the  possession  by  the  earth  of  conservative  vir- 
tue— that  is,  electrical  attraction — and  also  of  the  capacity 
of  not  only  attracting,  but  repelling  other  bodies.  Von 
Guericke  had  copied  Gilbert's  idea  of  the  earth-kin — the 
terrella — but  had  made  his  miniature  globe,  not  of  a  mag- 
net, but  of  an  electric.  And  Monconys  saw  von  Guericke 
rotate  that  electric  globe  to  imitate  the  rotating  earth, 
meanwhile  rubbing  it;  and  then  he  also  saw,  and  describes 
fairly  well,  the  extraordinary  phenomena  revealed  by  this 
first  of  all  electrical  machines. 


396          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Monconys  says  that  Guericke  told  him,  among  other 
things,  that  the  smooth  yellow  sphere  which  was  exhibited 
was  made  of  nine  different  minerals,  but  either  Monconys' 
memory  was  at  fault  or  else  Guericke  thought  a  little  mis- 
direction justifiable  in  the  circumstances.  Guericke  him- 
self tells  how  to  make  the  globe,  as  follows:  "Take  a 
sphere  of  glass  (called  a  vial)  of  about  the  size  of  the 
head  of  an  infant;  put  in  it  sulphur  that  has  been  pulver- 
ized in  a  mortar,  and  sufficiently  liquefied  by  being  placed 
near  a  fire.  When  this  has  become  cool,  break  the  sphere, 
take  out  the  globe,  and  keep  it  in  a  place  that  is  dry." 
Afterwards  it  is  to  be  perforated,  so  that  it  can  be  rotated 
on  an  iron  axis,  and  that,  perhaps,  is  a  reason  why  he  did 
not  rub  the  glass  vial  itself  instead  of  the  sulphur  cast  in 
it.  It  would  be  difficult  to  make  a  smooth  round  hole  in 
the  imperfect  glass  of  those  days,  for  the  insertion  of  the 
axis. 

The  sulphur  globe  being  described,  Guericke  proceeds 
to  show  how  it  possesses  the  different  virtues  and  the  re- 
sults thereof. 

"It  Has,  first,  the  impulsive  virtue  (momentum),  because, 
being  heavy,  it  can  be  hurled  by  the  hand  further  than  if 
it  were  made  of  wood  or  lighter  material."  So  also  it  has 
the  conservative  virtue,  to  exhibit  which  the  axis  of  the 
globe  is  placed  in  two  supports  a  hand's  breadth  above  the 
supporting  base  or  platform,  upon  which  and  beneath  the 
globe  are  to  be  strewn  "all  sorts  of  little  fragments,  like 
leaves  of  gold,  silver,  paper,  shavings,"  etc.  The  direc- 
tions are  to  "stroke  the  globe  with  the  dry  palm,  so  that 
it  may  be  rubbed  or  submitted  to  friction  thus  twice  or 
thrice.  Then  it  will  attract  the  fragments,  and  when 
turned  on  its  axis  will  take  them  along  with  itself.  In 
this  manner  is  placed  before  the  eye  the  terrestrial  globe, 
as  it  were,  which  by  attracting  all  animals  and  other  things 
which  are  on  its  surface,  sustains  them  and  takes  them 
around  with  itself  in  its  diurnal  motion  in  twenty-four 
hours. 


VON  GUERICKE  ON  ELECTRIC  REPULSION.  397 

"Thus  this  globe  when  brought  rather  near  drops  of 
water  causes  them  to  swell  and  puff  up.  It  likewise  at- 
tracts air,  smoke,  etc. 

"  From  these  experiments  it  must  be  seen  that  there  ex- 
ists in  the  earth  for  the  preservation  of  itself  a  virtue  of 
this  sort,  which  also  can  be  excited  in  an  especially 
suitable  body,  namely,  this  globe,  so  that  it  acts  more  in 
it  than  in  the  earth  itself  (for  whatever  this  globe  attracts, 
it  snatches  it,  as  it  were,  or  draws  it  away  from  the  earth). " 

Now  follows  the  first  positive  recognition  of  electric  re- 
pulsion— which  is  none  other  than  von  Guericke's  expul- 
sive virtue.  Cabaeus  had  seen  the  chaff  leap  back  from 
the  electric,  but  he  had  not  interpreted  the  phenomenon 
itself,  although  he  had  tried  to  concoct  a  theory  in  con- 
formity with  it.  Not  so  von  Guericke.  Hear  him: 

"Even  expulsive  virtue  is  to  be  seen  in  this  globe 
(namely  when  it  is  taken  from  the  apparatus  to  the  hand 
and  is  rubbed  or  stroked  in  said  manner  with  the  dry  hand), 
for  it  not  only  attracts  but  also  repels  again  from  itself 
little  bodies  of  this  sort  (in  proportion  to  their  temper), 
nor  does  it  receive  them  until  they  have  touched  some- 
thing else." 

There  is  also  the  first  suggestion  of  the  discharge  of  the 
electrification  of  the  attracted  body  on  contact  with  an 
object  other  than  the  electric,  and  its  consequent  re-attrac- 
tion by  the  latter. 

But  note  his  experiment.  He  takes  the  globe  out  of  its 
supports  and  holds  it  in  his  hands  with  its  axis  vertical. 
Then,  after  exciting  the  globe  and  causing  it  to  repel  a 
feather,  he  carries  it  around  the  room,  so  that  it  drives 
the  feather,  floating  in  the  air,  before  it.  His  feather  is  a 
bit  of  down,  which  he  says  "extends  itself  and  in  some 
way  shows  itself  alive" — its  individual  electrified  fila- 
ments of  course  mutually  repelling.  He  observes  that 
when  it  is  thus  chased  around  the  room  it  prefers  to  ap- 
proach u  the  points  of  any  object  whatsoever  before  it,  and 
it  is  possible  to  bring  it  where  it  may  cling  to  the  nose  of 


398 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 


any  one."  Here  he  is  anticipating  Franklin  in  recogniz- 
ing the  effect  of  pointed  conductors  in  drawing  off  the 
electric  charge. 

"But,"  he  continues,  "if  one  places  a  lighted  candle 
upon  the  table  and  drives  the  feather  at  a  distance  of  about 
a  hand-breadth  from  the  candle  up  to  the  globe,  the  feather 
suddenly  recedes  and  flies  to  the  globe  as  a  sort  of  guard;" 
and  thus  he  observes  the  dissipation  of  the  charge  on  the 


a,  # 


VON   GUERICKE'S  BIiECTRICAI,  MACHINE  AND  SUI.PHUR  GI.OBE. 


feather  by  the  hot  air,   so  that  it  becomes  no  longer  re- 
pelled but  once  more  attracted  by  the  rubbed  globe. 

Now  follows  a  number  of  other  curious  observations  of 
the  electrified  feather.  He  finds  that  the  same  part  or 
face  of  the  feather  by  which  the  feather  has  been  once 
caught  up  by  the  globe  and  then  repelled  is  kept  un- 
changed in  the  orb  of  virtue;  so  that  if  any  one  puts  the 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  fac  simile  from  von  Guericke's  Experimenta 
Nova  Magdeburgica.  On  the  right  appears  the  first  electrical  machine  ; 
on  the  left,  the  sulphur  globe  on  the  end  of  the  staff  held  by  the  figure 
is  represented  as  repelling  the  floating  feather  (a). 


THE   DISCOVERY  OF   ELECTRICAL   CONDUCTION.      399 

globe  above  the  feather,  the  latter  "inverts  itself  in  the 
air  and  views  the  globe  always  with  the  same  face."  Von 
Guericke  stops  here  to  suggest  that  "it  is  from  the  same 
cause  that  the  moon  always  turns  the  same  face  toward  the 
earth,  and  doubtless  in  the  orb  of  the  earth's  virtue  is  thus 
repelled  by  it  and  there  held."  Then  continuing:  "if 
the  feather  begins  to  unfold  its  pinnules  on  the  globe  and 
you  extend  your  finger  or  something  else  to  it,  it  will  fly 
to  it  and  recede  toward  the  globe,  and  repeat  this  several 
times;  but  if  you  present  a  linen  thread  to  the  feather,  all 
its  pinnules  are  straightway  attached  to  the  globe,  and 
thus  attached  lie  for  quite  a  while  as  if  dead,  until  they 
again  erect  and  extend  themselves.  In  the  same  manner 
this  feather  shows  the  fire  to  such  an  extent  that  if  it  thus 
unfolds  itself  and  the  flame  of  the  candle  is  moved  up  to 
it,  the  feather  throws  itself  back  upon  the  globe." 

"If  the  globe  is  suspended  on  its  axis  in  the  apparatus 
in  such  a  manner  that  it  can  turn,  and  be  excited  by  the 
palm  in  the  accustomed  manner,  and  a  rather  soft  feather 
is  placed  beneath,  the  globe  will  then  attract  the  feather 
many  times  and  drive  it  around  away  from  itself  into  the 
nearest  place  underneath  itself,  and  continue  this  for  some 
hours."  Thus  the  feather  is  alternately  charged  and  dis- 
charged and  so  kept  in  vibration.  Von  Guericke  finds  in 
this  proof  of  the  animate  nature  of  the  globe.  "When  it 
does  not  want  to  attract,"  he  says,  "it  does  not  attract." 
Nor  does  it  "allow  the  feather  to  approach  until  it  has 
cast  it  against  something  else,  perhaps  in  order  that  it 
may  acquire  something  therefrom." 

Now  comes  the  announcement  of  a  discovery  of  the 
highest  import.  Gilbert  had  seen  a  rod,  rendered  magnetic 
at  one  end,  become  magnetic  at  the  other;  but  no  one  had 
observed  any  transference  of  the  supposed  electric  effluvia 
except  from  the  surface  of  the  electric  to  the  limits  of  the 
orb  or  sphere  of  virtue.  Von  Guericke  now,  for  the  first 
time,  makes  known  electrical  conduction — the  transfer- 
ence of  electrification  from  an  electrified  body  to  one  not 


400         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

electrified,  and  the  appearance  of  the  electrification  in  a 
long  conductor  at  the  end  opposite  to  that  at  which  it  is 
produced — or,  in  other  words,  the  apparent  instantaneous 
transfer  of  electricity  from  end  to  end  of  the  line.  He 
had  noticed  that  "if  you  let  down  almost  to  the  globe  a 
linen  thread  suspended  from  above  and  try  to  touch  it 
with  the  finger  or  something  else,  the  thread  recedes  and 
will  not  allow  the  finger  to  meet  it."  So  he  fastens  a 
similar  thread,  an  ell  in  length,  to  the  end  of  a  sharp 
stick  attached  to  a  table,  and  allows  it  to  hang  vertically 
and  so  that  its  extremities  will  be  situated  "a  thumb 
breadth  distance  from  some  other  body" — the  nature  of 
which  is  not  material.  Now  he  excites  his  globe  and 
brings  it  up  to  the  stick  which  supports  the  thread.  And 
then  he  sees  the  lower  extremity  of  the  thread  move  up 
to  the  adjacent  body. 

"By  this,"  he  says  in  one  place,  "it  is  demonstrated 
to  the  eye  that  the  virtue  extends  itself  in  the  linen 
thread  even  to  the  lowest  parts  where  it  either  attracts 
or  is  itself  drawn" — and  in  another  "This  experiment 
ocularly  shows  that  the  sulphur  globe,  having  been  pre- 
viously excited  by  rubbing,  can  exercise  likewise  its  virtue 
through  a  linen  thread  an  ell  or  more  long,  and  there 
attract  something," 

Here — and  not  in  mythical  sympathies  of  Widely-sepa- 
rated magnets — was  the  true  beginning  of  the  harnessing 
of  the  lightning  to  compass  the  annihilation  of  distance 
and  time.  The  first  telegraph,  the  first  conductor  for  the 
transmission  of  energy  by  electricity,  were  there  in  von 
Guericke's  "linen  thread  an  ell  or  more  long;"  and  its 
quivering  extremity,  swinging  to  the  juxtaposed  body, 
indicated  the  approach  of  the  excited  globe  to  the  distant 
supporting  rod  as  certainly  and  by  means  of  the  same 
medium  as  does  the  equally  swinging  spot  of  light  in  the 
receiving  station  show  the  varying  electrification  of  the 
great  cable  controlled  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Note,  moreover,   that  von  Guericke  attaches  his  little 


VON  GUERICKE  S   EXPERIMENTS.  40 1 

linen  line  to  a  "pointed  stick."  He  had  before  stated 
that  points,  even  a  person's  nose,  best  attracted  the  float- 
ing electrified  feather.  Having  found  out  the  discharging 
advantage  of  the  point,  he  thus  applies  it  as  the  best  means 
of  causing  the  virtue  to  pass  upon  the  linen  thread. 

This  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  examples  of  thought- 
ful invention  which  the  history  of  electricity  affords.  He 
conceived  the  idea  that  the  electrical  virtue  could  be  made 
to  pass  over  a  line;  that  the  charge  could  be  imparted  to 
a  thin  thread  conductor  by  connecting  the  latter  to  the 
sharpened  extremity  of  a  fixed  support;  that  the  support 
could  be  electrified  by  bringing  the  rubbed  globe  into 
proximity  with  it;  that  the  end  of  the  hanging  thread 
would,  when  electrified,  move  toward  and  from  an  adja- 
cent fixed  body,  and  that  therefore  a  movement  to  and  fro 
of  the  excited  globe  at  one  end  of  the  line  would  instantly 
cause  a  like  vibratory  motion  of  the  other  end. 

And  yet  von  Guericke  had  never  heard  of  "Maxwell's 
laws,"  or  "surface  density,"  or  "ether  strains  and 
stresses;"  but  he  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
therefore  it  is  conceivable  that  he  may  have  made  the  dis- 
coveries above  outlined.  Had  he  lived  in  the  nineteenth, 
plenty  of  people  would  be  ready  to  argue  the  opposite,  for 
to  these  doubting  minds  no  man  can  now  be  presumed  to 
have  discovered  anything  if,  after  the  event,  it  is  objected 
that  he  was  ignorant  of  the  laws  which  higher  intelli- 
gences think  they  would  have  followed  had  they  made  the 
discovery  themselves.  Besides,  there  would  not  be  want- 
ing other  keen  spirits  to  recognize  a  complete  anticipa- 
tion of  his  revelation  of  electrical  conduction  in  Bacon's 
allegation  of  half  a  century  before,  that  "it  is  an  ancient 
tradition  everywhere  alleged,  for  example,  of  secret  prop- 
erties and  influxes,  that  the  torpedo  marina,  if  it  be 
touched  with  a  long  stick,  doth  stupefy  the  hand  of  him 
that  toucheth  it."  * 

1  Bacon:  Nat.  Hist.  Cent.,  x.,.No.  993. 
26 


402          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

But  a  still  more  wonderful  discovery  is  yet  to  be  re- 
corded. Von  Guericke  says  to  rub  the  sulphur  globe  with 
the  dry  palm  of  the  hand.  Then  if  "you  take  the  globe 
with  you  into  a  dark  room  and  rub  it,  especially  at  night, 
light  will  result,  as  when  sugar  is  beaten." 

And  that  is  the  first  announcement  of  the  electric  light. 

He  -had  seen  a  brush  discharge  between  the  electrified 
globe  and  his  hand,  and  although  he  does  not  connect  the 
two  phenomena,  he  had  also  heard  the  snaps  and  crackling 
incident  thereto.  u  There  is  likewise  a  virtue  of  sound," 
he  says,  u  in  this  globe,  for  when  it  is  carried  in  the  hand 
or  is  held  in  a  warm  hand  and  thus  brought  to  the  ear, 
roarings  and  crashings  are  heard  in  it." 

And  thus  von  Guericke  established,  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion, that  the  sulphur  globe  is  endowed  with  many  virtues. 
When  thrown  by  the  hand  it  had  momentum  or  impulsive 
virtue  because  of  its  weight.  It  drew  light  bodies  to  it 
and  expelled  others  from  it,  and  hence  had  both  the  con- 
servative and  expulsive  virtues.  It  had  also  the  sound- 
ing, lighting  and  heating  (by  friction)  virtues,  but  not  the 
turning  and  directing  virtues.  But  in  that  it  had  the 
conservative  and  expulsive  virtues  it  was  like  the  earth. 
It  was  an  electric  instead  of  a  magnetic  terrella — showing 
that  our  globe  is  not  a  mass  of  primordial  terrene  Matter 
drawing  things  to  itself  while  directing  its  own  axis  by 
its  inherent  magnetic  quality,  but  a  great  electric  mass 
having  for  its  chief  characteristic  its  conservative  or  at- 
tractive virtue,  and  endowed  from  outside  with  a  capacity 
whereby  its  axis  is  prevented  from  wabbling;  a  vast  elec- 
tric machine  rotated  by  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  and 
excited  by  the  friction  of  the  solar  rays.1 

1  The  first  record  in  the  annals  of  the  Royal  Society  which  has  any  re- 
lation to  electricity  is  a  review  of  von  Guericke's  treatise.  It  was 
quickly  recognized  that  his  sulphur  globe  was  an  electric  terrella — "by 
which  experiment,"  it  is  added,  "he  thinks  may  be  represented  the 
chief  virtues  he  enumerates  of  our  earth,"  and  that  "the  impulsive, 
attractive, expulsive  and  other  virtues  of  the  earth,  as  he  calls  them,  may 
be  ocularly  exerted."  Phil.  Trans.,  1672,  No.  88,  p.  5103. 


VON  GUERICKE'S  DISCOVERIES.  403 

Such  was  the  conception  which  Guericke  sought  to  es- 
tablish. The  effort  resulted  in  the  discovery  of  electrical 
conduction,  of  electrical  polarity,  of  the  transmission  of 
electrification  over  an  elongated  conductor,  of  electric 
light,  of  sound  produced  by  electricity,  of  the  discharging 
capacity  of  points,  of  the  dissipation  of  charge  by  hot  air, 
and  of  the  vibration  of  a  freely- movable  body  due  to  its 
charge  and  discharge;  the  first  recognition  of  electrical 
repulsion  as  such,  a  direct  suggestion  of  the  identity  of 
electrical  attraction  and  gravity,  and  the  construction  and 
successful  use  of  the  first  machine  for  the  production  of 
electricity.1 

And  all  these  accomplishments  remained  practically  un- 
noticed until  the  days  of  Dufay.  Well  might  that  gene- 
rous discoverer  detect  in  them  the  cause  of  subsequent 
progress,  and  express  his  astonishment  that  they  had  re- 
mained so  long  forgotten. 

1  On  peut  voir  dans  le  recit  abre"ge"  de  ces  experiences,  la  base  et  la 
principe  de  toutes  celles  qui  ont  e"te  faites  depuis  avec  le  tube  et  le  globe 
de  verre:  et  on  ne  peut  s'empecher  d'etre  surpris  quelles  ayant  demeure' 
si  longtemps  dans  1'oubli,  ou  du  moins  qu'on  ne  se  soit  pas  avise"  de  les 
repeter  et  de  tacher  de  les  porter  plus  loin.  Mem.  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des 
Sci.,  1733,  25. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  Invisible  College  in  England  continued  to  hold  its 
meetings  in  Oxford  and  in  Gresham  College,  but  in  1659, 
upon  the  fall  of  Richard  Cromwell,  the  members  were 
scattered,  and  their  gathering-place  converted  into  bar- 
racks. The  advent  of  King  Charles,  however,  gave  them 
new  courage;  and  in  1660,  twenty-one  persons,  including, 
among  others,  Sir  Kenehn  Digby,  Dr.  Wilkins  and  Mr. 
John  Evelyn,  regularly  organized  themselves  into  a  society 
for  the  promotion  of  all  kinds  of  experimental  philosophy.1 

The  prospects  of  the  new  society  were  not  flattering. 
At  best  it  might  plant  a  few  seeds  of  sound  knowledge  of 
which  chance  might  favor  the  growth,  or  maintain  a  cult 
which  now  and  then  might  attract  a  disciple.  But  for 
the  great  body  of  the  English  people,  exhausted  after 
twenty  years  of  incessant  strife,  and  still  in  the  turmoil 
and  excitement  of  the  Restoration,  physical  science  prob- 
ably possessed  no  more  immediate  living  interest,  than  it 
had  for  the  troublesome  savages  in  the  Irish  bogs.  So  the 
new  philosophy  had  little  to  expect  by  way  of  speedy  ad- 
vancement; nor  had  it  the  inherent  motive  power  capable 
of  diffusing  it  through  the  vast  and  sodden  mass  of  popu- 
lar ignorance  and  indifference;  still  less  the  more  potent 
impetus  required  to  effect  the  substitution  of  new  learning 
for  old,  in  minds  which  the  latter  had  saturated  and  there 
become  stagnant. 

Nevertheless,  it  numbered  among  its  members  such  men 
as  John  Wallis,  the  mathematician;  John  Wilkins,  after- 
wards Bishop  of  Chester;  Seth  Ward,  later  Bishop  of  Salis- 
bury; Jonathan  Goddard,  warden  of  Merton;  Sir  William 
Petty,  and  most  eminent  of  all,  Robert  Boyle.  And  per- 

1  Thomson:  Hist.  Roy.  Society.     London,  1812. 
(404) 


GRANDAMICUS   AND   POWER.  405 

haps  because  of  its  fostering  care,  we  hear  now  and  then 
of  a  new  conceit;  such  as  Hartlib's  discovery  of  the  ink 
which  gives  a  dozen  copies  on  a  moist  sheet  of  paper  ap- 
plied to  the  writing;  or  Colonel  Blount's  new  plows,  or 
Neale's  telescopes,  or  Greatrex's  fire  engine,  or  Petty's 
double-bottomed  ship.1  Evelyn  dines  with  Wilkins  in 
1654,  and  admires  his  ingenious  apiaries,  so  made  that  the 
honey  can  be  taken  without  disturbing  the  bees,  his  way- 
wiser,  thermometer  and  monstrous  magnet.2  A  year  later, 
he  records  seeing  a  u  pretty  terrella,  described  with  all  the 
circles  and  showing  all  the  magnetic  deviations."3 

Gilbert  had  said  that  the  earth  is  a  magnet  and  does 
rotate.  The  Jesuits,  contrariwise,  and  with  characteristic 
casuistry,  had  said  that  the  earth  is  not  a  big  magnet,  but 
merely  a  magnetical  body,  and  that  it  does  not  rotate. 
Others  had  admitted  that  the  earth  rotates,  while  denying 
its  inherent  magnetic  quality.  Now  comes  Father  Gran- 
damicus,4  from  the  Jesuit  College  at  Fleche,  in  France, 
with  an  effort  to  reconcile  all  difficulties  on  the  new  and 
original  basis  that  the  earth  is  a  big  magnet,  and  for  that 
very  reason  does  not  rotate,  because,  like  the  magnet,  it 
has  poles,  and  no  magnet  has  ever  been  seen,  by  its  own 
inherent  magnetism,  to  turn  itself  around  its  own  poles. 
But  Dr.  Power5  was  ready  with  a  u confutation,"  and,  to 
the  credit  of.  the  College,  he  talks  of  the  corporeal  efflu- 
viums of  the  magnet  and  the  electric  about  as  well  as  any- 
body had  done  before  him,  and  sets  the  Frenchman  right 
with  all  the  emphasis  peculiar  to  a  semi- theological  dispu- 
tation of  the  times. 

The  great  impulse  which  was  to  start  anew  the  progress 

knight:  Hist.  England,  iv.,  174. 
2  Evelyn's  Diary.     13  July,  1654. 
3 Ibid.,  3  July,  1655. 

4  Grandamicus:  Nova  Demonstratio  Immobilitatis  Terrae  petita  ex  vir- 
tute  magnetica.     Flexiae,  1645. 

5  Power:  A  confutation  of  Grandamicus,  his  magnetical  tractate  de 
Immobilitate  Terrae.     London,  1663. 


406         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

of  English  experimental  science  had  not  yet,  however, 
been  felt.  It  was  to  come,  if  at  all,  from  without,  and 
from  without  it  came,  and  from  a  quarter  least  of  all  to  be 
anticipated.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind 
Fashion  and  Science  joined  hands.  All  the  benefits  which 
the  stern  goddess  had  offered  had  been  as  nothing;  all  her 
struggles  to  stir  the  inertia  of  the  load  had  been  futile;  but 
now  a  beckon  and  a  nod  from  the  fickle  and  laughing 
dame,  a  touch  of  the  finger,  and  the  mountain  moved. 

The  Society  applied  to  Charles  for  a  charter.  There 
was  no  reason  why  so  devoted  a  band  of  Royalists  should 
not  thus  be  rewarded,  especially  as  doing  so  involved  no 
settlement  of  old  pecuniary  scores  for  aid  and  comfort. 
So  the  King  not  only  converted  it  into  the  Royal  Society, 
but  gave  to  it,  what  was  far  more  immediately  valuable 
than  the  charter,  the  light  of  his  kingly  countenance. 
The  result  upon  the  fortunes  of  the  new  philosophy  was 
magical.1  The  Court,  in  lieu  of  baiting  Puritans,  place 
jobbing,  flirting  and  gambling,  fell  to  discussing  the  pneu- 
matic engine,  the  ponderation  of  the  air,  blood  transfusion, 
and  the  variation  of  the  compass.  My  Lord  Keeper  Guil- 
ford  thriftily  had  barometers  constructed  for  sale  in  Lon- 
don, and  united  with  my  Lord  Chief  Justice  Hale  in  mak- 
ing suitors  wait  pending  the  production  of  obiter  dicta  on 
hydrostatics.  Prince  Rupert  invented  mezzo-tinto  engrav- 
ing, and  set  the  willingly  admiring  courtiers  to  breaking 
off  the  tails  of  the  wonderful  little  drops  of  glass  which  he 
had  brought  into  England,  to  see  them  fly  to  pieces.  Even 
Buckingham  found  time,  amid  the  pressing  claims  of  wine, 
women,  the  gaming  table  and  the  stage,  to  dabble  in  chem- 
istry. If  one  dropped  in  at  Will's  it  was  to  find  men  of 
fashion  discussing  telescopes  and  the  Vacuo  Boyleano. 
My  lady,  in  her  boudoir,  chattered  of  the  shining  phos- 
phorus from  Germany,  or  went  in  her  coach  and  six  to 
visit  the  Gresham  curiosities,  and  u  broke  forth  into  cries 
of  delight  at  finding  that  a  magnet  really  attracted  a  needle, 

1Macaulay:  Hist,  of  England,  Chap.  iii. 


CHARLES   II.    AS   A    PATRON    OF   SCIENCE.  407 

and  that  a  microscope  really  made  a  fly  look  as  large  as  a 
sparrow."  Did  not  that  " mighty  pretender  to  learning, 
poetry  and  philosophy,"  the  Duchess  of  Newcastle  (and 
with  her  the  Ferabosco,  with  "good  little  black  eyes"), 
visit  the  new  Society  to  witness  experiments  "upon  colors, 
lodestones,  microscopes  and  liquors?"  And  did  not  the 
Lord  President  receive  her  (together  with  the  Ferabosco) 
and  escort  her  to  her  seat  with  the  mace  solemnly  borne 
before  ? — and,  let  us  hope,  with  a  properly  straight  visage. 
And  her  Grace  was  indeed  edified,  for  "after  they  had 
shown  her  many  experiments,"  records  Mr.  Pepys,1  "she 
cried  still  she  was  full  of  admiration,  and  departed,"  Mr. 
Evelyn  being  in  waiting  to  hand  her  to  her  coach. 

And  Mr.  Pepys  likewise  undertakes  a  little  magnetic 
experimenting  on  his  own  account.  "This  day"  (Nov. 
2d,  1663),  he  records,  "I  received  a  letter  from  Mr.  Bar- 
low with  a  terrella  which  I  had  hoped  he  had  sent  me,  but 
to  my  trouble  I  find  it  is  to  present  from  him  to  my  Lord 
Sandwich;  but  I  will  make  a  little  use  of  it  first,  and  then 
give  it  to  him."  He  kept  it  nearly  a  month  before  deliv- 
ering to  Sandwich,  who,  he  says,  received  it  with  great 
pleasure. 

And  as  for  the  king,  he  set  up  a  laboratory  at  White- 
hall and  worked  in  it.  He  went  to  the  Society's  rooms 
and  looked  at  experiments  on  the  new  liquid  for  staunch- 
ing the  flow  of  blood.2  And,  when  the  men  of  quality 
came  to  chat  with  him  of  a  morning  during  the  porten- 
tous ceremonies  of  tying  his  cravat  or  combing  his  wig, 
they  found  his  Majesty  with  far  less  appetite  for  court 
gossip  than  for  weather  observations.3  Even  at  the  Coun- 
cil Board,  the  royal  thoughts  were  apt  to  wander  from  the 
doings  of  the  Dutch  abroad  and  his  last  idea  for  extorting 
taxes  at  home,  to  the  new  baroscope  with  which  he  and 
his  chaplain  Beal  amused  themselves. 

1  Pepys'  Diary,  May  30,  1667.     See  also  Evelyn's  Diary,  same  year. 

2  Phil.  Trans.,  1673,  No.  96,  p.  6078. 

3  Thorpe:  Essays  on  Hist.  Chemistry.     London,  1894  (Robert  Boyle). 


408         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Hence  it  came  about — because  Iris  had  lent  Minerva 
her  wings — because  Folly  had  put  her  shoulder  to  the 
load  which  Reason  could  not  move — that  a  great  progress 
in  philosophical  thought  was  made.  The  Aristotelian 
physics  and  the  moribund  relics  of  scholasticism  expired; 
the  newer  vagaries  of  the  Rosicrucians  faded  into  thinner 
air  than  even  their  most  refined  spirits  could  breathe. 
The  "sure  arguments  and  demonstrated  experiments" 
for  which  Gilbert  had  so  strongly  pleaded  were  hereafter 
to  be  the  oi;ly  foundation  for  physical  knowledge.  And 
all  this,  because  the  touch  of  that  singularly  wise,  pure 
and  good  Charles  had  made  experimental  science  the 
mode. 

But  however  much  people  betook  themselves  to  the  new 
philosophy  because  it  was  fashionable,  this  was  far  from 
being  the  reason  which  influenced  the  king  himself.  His 
taste  for  science  was  no  craving  for  new  diversion,  nor  did 
he  soon  tire  of  his  fancy.  His  inclination  to  physical  study 
and  experiment  was  natural.  He  would  have  been  a  good 
chemist  or  physicist  had  he  not  been  king.  Sprat,  writ- 
ing five  years  after  the  establishment  of  the  Society,  tells 
us  that  he  constantly  spurred  the  members  onward  to  fresh 
exertion  and  "provok'd  them  to  unwearied  activity  in 
their  Experiments  by  the  most  effectual  means  of  his 
Royal  example:"  that  "the  noise  of  Mechanick  Instru- 
ments is  heard  in  Whitehall  itself,  and  the  King  has 
under  his  own  roof  found  place  for  Chymical  Operators." 
It  is  the  king  who  uhas  endowed  the  College  of  London 
with  new  Priviledges  .  .  planted  a  Physick  Garden  under 
his  own  eye"  and  "made  Plantations  enough,  even  almost 
to  repair  the  mines  of  a  Civil  War" — the  king  who  offered 
rewards  to  "those  that  shall  discover  the  Meridian,"  the 
king  who,  "acknowledged  to  be  the  best  Judge  amongst 
Seamen  and  Shipwrights,"  set  the  Society  studying  the 
problems  of  navigation  and  ship-building.  That  he  was 
especially  interested  in  magnetism  is  shown  by  his  pre- 
sentation of  a  terrella  to  the  Society — a  stone  which  the 


THE   ROYAL  SOCIETY.  409 

members  examined  twenty -five  years  later  to  see  whether 
its  poles  had  changed  in  position.1 

u  He  has  frequently  committed  many  things  to  their 
search,"  says  the  future  Bishop,  beginning  a  succession  of 
sentences  which  insist  upon  irrelevantly  recalling  the 
arraignment  of  George  III.  in  the  immortal  Declara- 
tion—  "he  has  referred  many  foreign  rarities  to  their  in- 
spection: he  has  recommended  many  domestick  improve- 
ments to  their  care:  he  has  demanded  the  result  of  their 
trials  in  many  appearances  of  Nature:  he  has  been  present 
and  assisted  with  his  own  hands  at  the  performing  of 
many  of  their  Experiments,  in  his  Gardens,  his  Parks 
and  on  the  River  .  .  he  has  sometimes  reproved  them  for 
the  slowness  of  their  proceedings." 

Nor  did  he  fail  to  recognize  the  democracy  of  science — 
for  when  the  young  Society  demurred  at  admitting  into  its 
fold  John  Graunt,  citizen  of  London,  the  judicious  author 
of  the  Observations  on  the  Bills  of  Mortality  (the  first 
great  work  on  its  subject)  because  he  was  a  tradesman,  it 
was  speedily  brought  to  its  senses  by  a  sharp  message  of 
disapproval  from  his  Majesty  and  a  curt  order  "that  if 
they  found  any  more  such  tradesmen,  they  should  be  sure 
to  admit  them  all  without  any  more  ado." 

The  importance  of  the  part  which  the  Royal  Society 
>layed  in  the  development  of  the  new  philosophy,  and  later 
in  that  of  the  new  science  of  electricity,  can  not  be  over- 
ited.  Indeed,  it  may  be  said  that  at  the  very  beginning  of 
its  career,  the  sturdy  blows  which  it  dealt  to  witchcraft,  sor- 
>ry  and  demonology,  by  shattering  popular  belief  in  these 
[elusions,  did  much  to  emancipate  electrical  knowledge 
roin  the  errors  with  which  it  was  encumbered.  But  the 
example,  the  stimulus,  the  encouragement,  the  immediate 
lelp,  without  which  its  efforts  might  well  have  proved 
fruitless,  it  owes  in  no  small  measure  to  the  king  himself, 
'herefore  in  estimating  the  conditions  of  the  philosophical 

renaissance  now  under  review,  it  is  necessary  to  remember 

• 

1  Phil.  Trans.,  No.  388,  p.  344,  1687. 


410         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

not  the  dissolute,  prevaricating,  pleasure-loving  monarch, 
whose  reign  reduced  England  to  the  lowest  political 
level  she  has  touched  in  modern  times,  but  rather  the 
eager  student  who  vied  in  making  experiments  with  the 
other  members  of  the  Society,  and  who  directed  the  influ- 
ence of  his  great  position  toward  the  promotion  of  knowl- 
edge and  research  with  a  vigorous  enthusiasm  such  as  the 
world  had  never  seen  before,  and  very  seldom  since,  in  the 
occupant  of  a  throne. 

Meanwhile,  events  happened  which,  although  disastrous 
to  the  community  in  general,  tended  to  advance  the  new 
Society  and  create  for  it  augmented  popular  interest.  The 
frightful  epidemic  of  plague  of  1665,  in  London,  followed 
by  the  great  fire  of  1666,  caused  all  classes  to  turn  to  the 
Royal  Society  for  advice  looking  to  the  prevention  of  such 
scourges  and  the  rebuilding  of  the  devastated  town:  this 
time  seriously  and  earnestly,  and  not  a  la  mode.  And  the 
Society  rose  to  the  occasion,  and  investigated  building  ma- 
terials and  new  modes  of  construction,  roadmaking  and 
the  laying  out  of  streets,  together  with  ways  and  means 
of  destroying  infection,  and  specifics  against  the  dread 
disease. 

Its  enthusiasm  matched  that  of  its  royal  patron.  "  The 
Fellows  set  to  work  to  prove  all  things  that  they  might 
hold  fast  that  which  was  good,"1  remarks  Professor  De 
Morgan,  satirically,  forgetting  that  this  was  the  first  in- 
stitution in  which  the  idea  of  progress  was  distinctly  em- 
bodied.2 True,  they  considered  whether  sprats  were  young 
herrings;  whether  a  spider  would  stay  within  a  circle  of 
powdered  unicorn's  horn  (which  it  would  not);  whether 
barnacles  turned  into  geese;  whether  diamonds  grew  in 
their  beds  like  oysters;  and  if  one  should  choose  to  select 
further  absurdities,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  make  their 
proceedings  appear  grotesque.  But  this  is  not  only  de- 

*De  Morgan:  A  Budget  of  Paradoxes.     London,  1872. 
» 

2Buckle:  Hist,  of  Civilization.     N.  Y.,  1877,  *•  269- 


SIR   CHRISTOPHER  WREN.  41! 

liberately  to  disregard  a  long  list  of  experiments  which  are 
useful  and  valuable,  but  to  ignore  the  famous  announce- 
ment made  by  Robert  Hooke,  which  is  at  once  a  declara- 
tion of  independence  of  the  old  philosophy,  and  a  tolling 
of  its  knell.1 

Although  Sir  Kenelin  Digby  was  of  the  council  (and 
then  in  high  favor  at  court,  being  named  in  the  king's 
charter  as  u  chancellor  to  his  dearest  mother  Queen 
Mary  ")  the  Society,  even  before  its  regular  organization, 
demolished  his  magnetic  nostrum  and  apparently  did  not 
even  think  it  worth  while  to  consider  the  report  of  the 
"curators  of  the  proposal  of  tormenting  a  man  with  the 
sympathetic  powder" — a  committee  which  it  appointed  in 
June,  1 66 1.. 

Among  the  members  was  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir)  Christo- 
pher Wren,  who  appears  on  a  different  eminence  from  that 
which  he  occupies  as  the  great  architect  of  St.  Paul's 
cathedral  in  London,  and  of  the  graceful  spire  which 
throws  its  shadow  across  the  busiest  part  of  Broadway. 
He  invented  the  first  registering  and  recording  apparatus 
— a  weather-gage  and  clock  combined,  actuating  a  pencil 
over  a  record  surface  so  that  "the  observer  by  the  traces 
of  the  pencil  on  the  paper  might  certainly  conclude,  what 
winds  had  blown  in  his  absence  over  twelve  hours  space;" 
the  registering  thermometer,  the  pluviometer,  balances  for 
determining  weight  of  air,  besides  many  improvements  in 
astronomical  instruments;  but  more  interesting  to  us  is  his 
arrangement  of  a  huge  terrella  in  an  opening  in  a  flat 

1<(This  Society  will  not  own  any  hypothesis,  system  or  doctrine  of  the 
principles  of  natural  philosophy,  proposed  or  mentioned  by  any  philoso- 
pher, ancient  or  modern,  nor  the  explication  of  any  phenomena,  where 
recourse  must  be  had  to  original  causes  (as  not  being  explicable  by  heat, 
cold,  weight,  figure  and  the  like,  as  effects  produced  thereby),  nor  dog- 
matically define  nor  fix  axioms  of  scientifical  things,  but  will  question 
and  canvass  all  opinions,  adopting  nor  adhering  to  none,  till  by  mature 
debate  and  clear  arguments,  chiefly  such  as  are  deduced  from  legitimate 
experiments,  the  truth  of  such  experiment  be  demonstrated  invincibly." 
Weld:  Hist.  R.  S.,  i.  146. 


412          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

board  "till  it  be  like  a  globe  with  the  poles  in  the  hori- 
zon." This  board  he  dusted  over  with  steel  filings 
"equally  from  a  sieve"  and  then  studied  the  curves  of  the 
filings  as  they  delineated  the  magnetic  spectrum.  Sprat 
tells  us  that  he  found  that  "the  lines  of  the  directive  vir- 
tue of  the  lodestone"  are  "oval"  and  that  appears  to 
have  been  another  recognition  of  "lines"  of  directive  vir- 
tue— a  conception  curiously  similar  to  Faraday's  lines  of 
magnetic  force. 

Among  the  other  experiments  which  Sprat  records, 
made  prior  to  1665,  when  the  Society  began  the  publica- 
tion of  its  transactions,  are  essays  "to  manifest  those  lines 
of  direction  by  the  help  of  needles;  to  discover  those  lines 
of  direction  when  the  influence  of  many  lodestones  is  com- 
pounded; to  find  what  those  lines  are  in  compassing  a 
spherical  lodestone,  what  about  a  square,  and  what  about 
a  regular  figure;  to  bore  through  the  axis  of  a  lodestone 
and  fill  it  up  with  a  cylindrical  steel."  Experiments  also 
were  made  on  lodestones  "having  many  poles  and  yet  the 
stones  seeming  uniform;"  "on  the  directive  virtue  of  the 
lodestone  under  water,"  and  "to  examine  the  force  of  the 
attractive  power  through  several  mediums." 

No  reform  sought  by  the  Society  proved  of  higher  mo- 
ment to  the  progress  of  science  than  that  which  put  an  en< 
to  the  De  Natura  Rerum  treatise.     If  any  one  had  anything 
to  communicate,  it  compelled  him  to  do  so  relevantly  an< 
briefly.     It  ruthlessly  rejected  dissertations  starting  from 
the  time  of  Adam,  introductory  to  a  physical  fact  observe 
yesterday.     It  "exacted   from   all   its   members   a   cl< 
naked,    natural   way   of    speaking,    positive   expressions 
clear  senses,  a  native  easiness,  bringing  all  things  as  neai 
the  mathematical  plainness  as  they  can,  and  preferring  the 
language  of  artisans,  countrymen  and   merchants  befoi 
that  of  wits  or  scholars."     Thence  sprang  that  require 
ment  which  enters  into  all  highly-developed  modern  syj 
terns  of  Patent   Law,    that  a  specification   shall   not 
addressed  to  the  erudite  and  learned,  but  shall  be  writtei 


THE  ROYAL  SOCIETY.  413 

in  sucli  full,  clear  and  exact  terms  that  any  person  skilled 
in  the  art  to  which  it  nearest  relates  shall  be  able  to  under- 
stand it  and  put  it  in  practice.  In  a  word,  the  Royal  Society 
completely  revolutionized  didactic  and  technical  writing 
and  the  mode  of  expressing  scientific  thought,  and  thereby 
did  enough,  had  it  immediately  afterwards  gone  out  of 
existence,  to  earn  for  itself  the  perpetual  gratitude  of  man- 
kind. 

Yet  the  glowing  language  of  the  ode  which  Cowley  ad- 
dresses to  the  young  Society,  in  which  he  compares  it  to 
Gideon's  band  picked  out  by  divine  design  to  do  "noble 
wonders,"  and  predicts  its  discovery  of  "New  Scenes  of 
Heaven"  and  "Crowds  of  Golden  Worlds  on  High,"  not 
to  mention  numerous  new  countries  on  earth,  by  no  means 
commanded  universal  assent.  In  fact,  the  poet  especially 
desires  that 

''Mischief  and  tru  Dishonour  fall  on  those 
Who  would  to  laughter  or  to  scorn  expose 
So  Virtuous  and  So  Noble  a  Design  " — 

which  referred,  with  direct  indirection,  to  Butler,  who 
lampooned,  and  to  Hobbes  who  both  sneered  and  thun- 
dered at  the  new  repository  of  all  wisdom,  and  to  the 
many  others  who  detested  the  Baconian  method  as  sub- 
versive of  religion,  civil  law,  reason  and  true  learning. 
Sttibbe,  writing  to  Robert  Boyle,  beseeches  him  to  con- 
sider "the  mischief  it  hath  occasioned  in  this  once  flour- 
ishing kingdom,"  and  warns  him,  that  unless  he  season- 
ably relinquishes  "these  itnpertinents"  "all  the  incon- 
veniences that  have  befallen  the  land,  all  the  debauchery 
of  the  gentry  .  .  .  will  be  charged  on  your  account."1 
Imagine  the  most  pious  and  amiable  of  English  philoso- 
phers held  to  responsibility  for  the  eccentricities  of  Lady 
Castlemaine  and  Mistress  Eleanor  Gwynne ! 

There  was  a  deal  of  appropriateness  in  Mr.  Stubbe's 
solicitude  that  Boyle  should  abandon  the  Society.  He 

1  Thorpe:  Essays  on  Hist.  Chemistry,  cit.  sup. 


414         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

was  by  all  odds  the  most  able  man  in  it — its  leading 
spirit;  and,  at  the  time  of  its  establishment,  easily  the 
most  eminent  experimental  philosopher  in  the  land — for 
Bacon  was  dead  and  Newton  yet  a  u  sober,  silent  thinking 
lad." 

In  the  year  1658,  Caspar  Schott,1  a  German  Jesuit  and  a 
pupil  of  Kircher,  published  a  voluminous  treatise  on 
Universal  Magic,  in  which  he  described,  for  the  first  time, 
von  Guericke's  air-pump  and  discovery  of  the  weight  of 
the  air — facts  which  he  had  learned  from  von  Guericke 
himself.  Schott's  work  came  into  Boyle's  hands,  and  he 
at  once  saw  something  which  von  Guericke  apparently 
had  overlooked — namely,  that  important  results  should 
follow  the  study  of  rarefied  air.  Thereupon,  with  the 
assistance  of  Robert  Hooke,  he  devised  a  new  and  more 
effective  form  of  air-pump  and  demonstrated  the  elasticity 
or  spring  of  the  air,  and  the  law  of  the  relation  between 
gas  volume  and  pressure,  which  has  ever  since  borne  his 
name.  He  was  the  first  scientific  chemist2 — the  first  to 
teach  that  chemistry  was  independent  of  other  arts  and 
not  a  mere  adjunct;  and  the  publication  of  his  Skeptical 
Chemist,  in  1661,  marked  the  overthrow  of  both  the 
Aristotelian  and  the  Paracelsan  doctrines  of  the  elements. 
With  him  began  the  new  era  in  scientific  research,  when 
its  highest  aim  became  the  simple  advancement  of  natural 
knowledge.3 

In  Boyle's  treatise4  touching  the  spring  of  the  air  (i659\ 
we  find  him  experimenting  upon  the  lodestone  and  observ- 
ing that  a  vacuum  does  not  prevent  the  passage  of  its 

1  Schott:  Mag'ae  Universalis,  Naturae  et  Artis,  Pars  III.  et  IV.     Her- 
bipolis.     1658. 

2  And  the  object  of  Sir  Boyle  Roche's  famous  Hibernicism  "The  father 
of  modern  chemistry  and  cousin  to  the  Earl  of  Cork!  " 

3  Roscoe  &  Schorlemmer :  Treatise  on  Chemistry.     New  York,  1883, 
i.,  10. 

4 See  The  Works  of  the  Honourable  Robert  Boyle,  London,  1744- 
Edited  by  Thomas  Birch. 


ROBERT   BOYLE.  415 

effluvia.  L/ater,  in  1663,  he  rubs  a  diamond  in  the  dark 
"upon  my  clothes,  as  is  usual  for  the  exciting  of  amber, 
wax,  and  other  electrical  bodies,"  when  it  did  "manifestly 
shine  like  rotten  wood."1  He  believed,  as  we  shall  now 
see,  fully  in  the  corporeal  nature  of  the  electric  effluvium, 
regarding  it  as  a  part  of  the  substance  of  the  electric,  and 
so  material  a  thing  that,  as  he  averred,  he  could  smell  it. 
("Many  electrical  bodies  may,  by  the  very  nostrils,  be  dis- 
covered.") This  seems  to  have  been  the  first  recognition 
of  the  peculiar  odor  of  ozone,  long  subsequently  observed 
by  Van  Marum,  although  the  substance  itself  was  not  dis- 
covered until  1840  by  Schonbein. 

Boyle's  conception  of  the  nature  of  magnetic  and  elec- 
tric attraction  was  by  no  means  an  arbitrary  hypothesis 
framed  to  meet  some  special  physical  conditions.  Here  he 
differed  from  Cabaeus,  Descartes,  and  even  from  Von 
Guericke.  He  formulated  the  corpuscular  or  mechanical 
philosophy,  wherein  he  neither  agreed  with  the  Plenists, 
as'Hobbes  and  the  Cartesians  were  called,  nor  with  the 
older  Vacuists,  who  denied  the  plenitude  of  the  world. 
His  primary  concepts  were  matter  and  motion — matter, 
apparently,  in  one  primordial  substance.  By  variously 
determined  motion,  he  believed  matterto  be  divided  into 
parts  of  differing  sizes  and  shapes,  and  set  moving  in  dif- 
ferent ways.  N Natural  bodies  of  several  kinds,  according 
"to  the  plenty  of  the  matter  and  the  various  compositions 
and  decompositions  of  the  principles,  are  thus  formed ; 
and  these,  by  virtue  of  their  motion,  rest,  and  other 
mechanical  affections  which  fit  them  to  act  on  and  suffer 
from  one  another  become  endowed  with  several  kinds  of 
qualities,"  which,  acting  on  the  senses,  result  in  percep- 
tions, and,  on  the  soul,  in  sensations.  The  summing  up 
of  his  philosophy  is  in  the  following  passage,  which  cer- 
tainly, for  its  time,  is  wonderfully  close  to  modern 
thought: 

"I  plead  only  for  such   philosophy  as  reaches  but  to 

1  Birch  :  The  Life  of  the  Hon.  Robert  Boyle.     London,  1744. 


41 6         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

things  purely  corporeal,  and,  distinguishing  between  the 
first  original  of  things  and  the  subsequent  course  of  nature, 
teaches  concerning  the  former,  not  only  that  God  gave 
motion  to  matter,  but,  in  the  beginning,  He  so  guided  the 
motions  of  the  various  parts  of  it,  as  to  contrive  them  into 
the  world  He  designed  they  should  compose  .  .  .  and 
established  those  rules  of  motion,  and  that  order  among 
things  corporeal,  which  we  are  wont  to  call  the  laws  of 
nature.  .  .  .  The  laws  of  motion  being  settled  and  all  up- 
held by  His  incessant  concourse  and  general  providence, 
the  phenomena  of  the  world,  thus  constituted,  are  physi- 
cally produced  by  the  mechanical  affections  of  the  parts  of 
matter  and  what  they  operate  upon  one  another,  according 
to  mechanical  laws." 

Surely  it  cannot  be  said  that  Boyle  had  not  perceived 
that  it  was  the  province  of  science  to  concern  herself  not 
with  matter,  but  with  the  changes  in  matter.  "I  am  apt 
to  think,"  he  avers,  "that  men  will  never  be  able  to  ex- 
plain the  phenomena  of  nature  while  they  endeavor  to 
deduce  them  only  from  the  presence  and  proportions  of 
such  and  such  material  ingredients,  and  consider  such  in- 
gredients or  elements  as  bodies  in  a  state  of  rest;  whereas, 
indeed,  the  greatest  part  of  the  affections  of  matter,  and 
consequently  of  the  phenomena  of  nature,  seem  to  depend 
upon  the  motion  and  contrivance  of  the  small  parts  of 
bodies." 

By  this  corpuscular  or  mechanical  philosophy  Boyle  ex- 
plains such  things  as  he  regards  as  natural  phenomena — 
such  as  heat  and  cold,  tastes,  corrosiveness,  fixedness, 
volatility,  chemical  precipitation,  and  finally,  magnetism 
and  electricity.  Thus,  heat,  he  says,  is  "that  mechanical 
affection  of  matter  we  call  local  motion,  mechanically 
modified"  in  three  ways:  first,  by  the  vehement  agitation 
of  the  parts;  second,  that  the  motions  be  very  various  in 
direction;  and  third,  that  the  agitated  particles,  or  at  least 
the  greatest  number  of  them,  be  so  minute  as  to  be  singly 
insensible. 


BOYLE'S   PHILOSOPHY.  417 

It  is  singular  how  the  mechanical  theory — or,  as  we  now 
term  it,  the  dynamical  theory,  as  applied  to  heat — im- 
pressed itself  upon  the  philosophers  of  the  seventeenth 
century.  Bacon  defines  heat  as  ua  motion  acting  in  its 
strife  upon  the  smaller  particles  of  bodies."  Boyle  saw 
clearly  that  when  heat  is  generated  by  mechanical  means, 
new  heat  is  called  into  existence,  and  believed  that  the 
production  of  heat  and  electricity  were  somehow  corre- 
lated. Locke,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Human  Understanding, 
says  that  "what  in  our  sensation  is  heat,  in  the  object  is 
nothing  but  motion."  Hooke  plainly  perceived  heat  as  a 
vibration,  and  denies  the  existence  of  anything  without 
motion,  and  hence  perfectly  cold.  Yet  it  was  the  Material, 
and  not  the  Mechanical  Theory,  which  prevailed  and 
which  held  the  beliefs  of  the  world  up  to  our  own  time. 

When  Boyle  turns  to  the  study  of  magnetism,  his 
lypothesis  grows  obscure.  He  denies,  in  the  beginning, 
Albert's  conception  that  magnetic  qualities  flow  from  the 
substantial  Form  of  the  lodestone,  and,  on  the  basis  of  ex- 
periments showing  the  reversal  of  the  poles  and  the  de- 
struction of  magnetism  by  heat,  he  concludes  that  changes 
in  the  "  pores,  or  some  other  mechanical  alterations  or  in- 
ward disposition,  either  of  the  excited  iron  or  of  the  lode- 
stone  itself,"  renders  it  capable  or  incapable  of  acting 
magnetically.  * 

His  subsequent  experiments,  such  as  cooling  and  ham- 
mering iron  rods  held  north  and  south,  are  all  old,  and 
are  interesting  simply  as  leading  him  to  the  more  definite 
dictum  that  "the  change  in  magnetism  communicated  to 
iron  may  be  produced  in  good  part  by  mechanical  opera- 
tions procuring  some  change  in  the  texture  in  the  iron."1 

He  is  not  in  nearly  so  much  doubt,  however,  concerning 
the  mechanical  production  of  electricity.2  Here  he  has 

1  Boyle  :  Experiments  and  Notes  about  the  Mechanical  Production  of 
Magnetism.     London,  1676. 

2  Boyle  :  Experiments  and  Notes  about  the  Mechanical  Origine  or  Pro- 
duction of  Electricity.     London,  1675. 

27 


41 8         THE   INTELIvECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

made  many  experiments — so  many  indeed  that  lie  has 
learned  that  their  event  is  "not  always  so  certain  as  that 
of  many  others,  being  sometimes  much  varied  by  seem- 
ingly slight  circumstances,  and  now  and  then  by  some 
that  are  altogether  overlooked" — which  is  by  no  means 
out  of  harmony  with  modern  conclusions.  Besides,  he 
has  the  backing  of  all  the  preceding  philosophers — von 
Guericke  alone  excepted.  There  was  Gilbert  with  his 
effluvia,  "like  material  rods;"  Cabseus  with  his  "shrink- 
ing steams;"  Descartes  with  his  "ribbons  shooting  from 
the  pores  of  the  glass;"  Digby  and  Browne  with  "unctu- 
ous filaments"  contracting  in  the  cold  air;  and  Gassendi, 
whom  I  have  hitherto  not  mentioned,  but  who  imagined 
emanations  which  not  only  entered  the  pores  of  the  chaff, 
but  became  crossed  therein,  and  thus  getting  a  better  hold 
on  it,  pulled  it  back  with  greater  force  in  retracting:  every 
one  of  these  philosophers  finding  the  electrical  effects  due, 
not  to  a  mere  quality  in  Form,  but  to  substantial  emana- 
tions from  the  attracting  body;  and  thus  all  seeking  to 
solve  the  problem  in  a  mechanical  way.  Heat,  says 
Boyle,  building  on  this  foundation,  agitates  the  parts  of 
the  body  and  makes  it  emit  effluvia.  Rubbing  modifies 
the  motions  of  the  internal  parts  and  gives  the  body  a 
texture  which  disposes  it  to  become  vigorously  electrical. 
And  so  it  continues  even  after  the  exciting  cause  is  re- 
moved, because  some  of  the  heat  still  remains.  On  a 
warm  day,  he  was  able  to  move  a  pivoted  steel  needle  with 
an  electric  no  larger  than  a  pea,  three  minutes  after  the 
rubbing  had  ceased. 

Then  he  remarks  something  altogether  unaccountable; 
(although  the  discovery  was  not  original  with  him,  for  it 
had  been  observed  years  before  by  the  Florentine  Acad- 
emy del  Cimento)  namely,  that  an  electric  can  apparently 
/be  moved  by  its  own  steams — as  he  observed  by  suspend- 
ing a  piece  of  amber,  rubbing  it  and  then  causing  it  to 
swing  so  as  to  follow  the  rubbing  cloth  moved  before  it. 
He  is  not  at  all  sure  as  to  what  this  portends,  and  in  fact 


ROBERT   BOYLE'S   EXPERIMENTS.  419 

is  somewhat  troubled  about  it.  u  His  nature,"  says 
Humboldt,  "was  cautious  and  doubting."  "Whether 
from  such  experiment  one  may  argue,"  he  says  thought- 
fully, "that  it  is  but,  as  it  were,  by  accident  that  amber 
attracts  another  body  and  not  this  the  amber;  and  whether 
these  ought  to  make  us  question  if  electrics  may  with  so 
much  propriety,  as  has  been  hitherto  generally  supposed, 
be  said  to  attract,  are  doubts  that  my  design  does  not 
here  oblige  me  to  examine." 

So  Boyle  went  on,  and  added  some  more  things  to  the 
list  of  electrics — turpentine  gum,  and  white  sapphires, 
and  English  amethysts,  and  emerald  (which  Gilbert  said 
would  not  attract),  and  carnelian  and  various  other  sub- 
stances; which  merely  swell  the  list,  and  are  of  no  im- 
portance. He  comes  back  for  a  final  blow  at  the  Form 
theory,  by  distilling  amber  to  a  caput  mortuum  and  show- 
ing that,  as  the  attractive  quality  is  still  present,  it  cannot 
be  due  to  the  "substantial  Form  of  amber "  which  has 
here  thoroughly  disappeared. 

Boyle's  idea  of  electric  attraction  having  much  in  com- 
mon with  the  hypothesis  of  corporeal  emanations,  which 
we  have  traced  through  different  theories,  it  follows,  of 
course,  that  he  did  not  agree  with  von  Guericke  in  the 
incorporeal  nature  of  the  expulsive  force,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, refers  to  electric  repulsion  very  much  as  Cabseus  did 
long  before,  in  proof  of  the  fact  that  the  briskly-moving 
steams  from  the  electric  physically  drive  away  the  at- 
tracted bodies.  But,  unlike  Cabaeus,  he  recognized  the 
specific  fact  of  the  repulsion,  indeed  had  to  do  so  to  reach 
the  idea  that  the  electric  operated  to  "discharge  and  shoot 
out  the  attracting  corpuscles"  which  carried  away  the 
chaff,  although  he  finds  it  difficult  to  coordinate  this  action 
with  the  attractive  effect,  and  admits  that  it  happens  only 
"at  a  certain  nick  of  time."  * 

1  Boyle :  Of  the  Great  Efficacy  of  Effluviums.    1673.     Cap.  iv.    Works: 
Birch.     Lond.,  1744.     Vol.  Hi.,  323. 
On  the  basis  of  a  paragraph,  which  appeared  in   1673,  Boyle  is  very 


420         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISK   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Boyle  closed  the  series  of  experiments  recorded  in  his  lit- 
tle treatise  of  1675 l — the  first  book  entirely  on  electricity  in 
the  English  language — with  the  doubts  raised  by  the  swing- 
ing amber  unsettled,  and,  indeed,  intensified,  for  he  had 
encountered  the  same  problem  in  other  and  even  more  enig- 
matic shapes.  He  tells  us  that  once  when  he  approached 
his  finger  to  a  down  feather  which  had  been  attracted  by  a 
large  piece  of  amber,  the  pinnules  of  the  feather  applied 
themselves  to  the  finger  uas  it  had  been  an  electrical 
body."  This  was  very  obscure  to  him.  First  he  thought 
that  warm  "steams"  from  his  person  might  somehow 
have  caused  this  attraction,  but  when  he  presented  to  the 
feather  a  rod  of  silver,  an  iron  key,  and  a  cold  piece  of 
black  marble,  the  pinnules  "did  so  readily  and  strongly 
fasten  themselves  to  these  extraneous  and  unexcited  bodies 
that  I  have  been  able  (though  not  easily)  to  make  one  of 
them  draw  the  feather  from  the  amber  itself. '  *  But  this,  he 
is  careful  to  note,  happens  only  while  the  amber  is  suffi- 
ciently excited  to  make  it  sustain  the  feather,  otherwise 
"neither  the  approach  of  my  finger  nor  that  of  the  other 
bodies  would  make  the  downy  feathers  change  their  pos- 
ture. Yet  as  soon  as  ever  the  amber  was  by  a  light  afflic- 
tion excited  over  again,"  the  finger  attracted  the  feather. 

He  repeated  this  experiment  over  and  over  again,  with 
"years  of  interval,"  he  says;  tried  innumerable  feathers 
and  substituted  brimstone  for  amber  as  the  electric — always 

frequently  credited  with  the  original  discovery  of  electrical  repulsion. 
In  the  same  connection  he  speaks,  however,  of  the  observation  as  one 
which  he  "  made  many  years  ago,  and  which  I  have  been  lately  informed 
to  have  long  been  since  made  by  the  very  learned  Fabri."  This  was 
published  a  year  after  the  appearance  of  von  Guericke's  treatise,  and 
hence  ten  years  after  the  visit  of  Monconys  to  Magdeburg.  HonorS 
Fabri,  the  French  mathematician,  to  whom  Boyle  alludes,  did  not  issue 
his  treatise  on  Physics  untill  1669,  so  that  not  only  is  the  actual  date  of 
Boyle's  reference  to  the  phenomena  long  after  that  of  von  Guericke's 
discovery,  but  there  is  nothing  inconsistent  with  the  priority  of  von 
Guericke  in  Boyle's  assertions  that  the  fact  had  long  been  known  to 
himself  and  Fabri. 
1  Cit.  sup. 


ROBERT  BOYLE'S  EXPERIMENTS.  421 

with  the  same  result;  always  the  same  insoluble  problem. 
He  had  no  more  conception  of  bodies  becoming  electrified 
by  induction,  when  brought  into  the  field  of  an  excited 
electric,  than  von  Guericke  had;  although  both  clearly 
saw  the  resulting  phenomena,  and  both  knew  the  essential 
conditions,  that  the  electric  must  be  excited  and  that  the 
body  must  be  brought  within  a  certain  distance  of  it.  Of 
course,  Boyle's  finger  became  electrified  by  induction 
oppositely  to  the  amber,  and,  hence,  easily  attracted  the 
light  pinnules  on  the  down;  but  that  knowledge  was  in 
the  far  future. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  host  of  puzzling  ques- 
tions which  forced  themselves  upon  Boyle.  So  far  as  he 
knew,  only  certain  things  (the  so-called  electrics),  when 
rubbed,  would  attract  the  feather.  Most  things  would  not. 
Yet  here  it  seemed  that  after  the  electric  had  once  seized 
the  down,  all  sorts  of  things  would  attract  it,  whether 
electric  or  otherwise.  There  was  his  own  finger.  He 
might  rub  the  very  skin  off  of  it,  and  yet  it  would  not 
attract;  but  put  it  near  the  feather  on  the  amber,  and  at 
once  it  exhibits  this  astonishing  capacity.  Was  he  an 
electric?  If  so,  why  at  one  time  and  not  at  another?  If 
he  and  the  silver  rod,  and  the  marble,  and  the  iron  key, 
were  all  in  fact  electrics,  why  would  not  rubbing  arouse 
the  attractive  'capacity  in  any  of  them  ?  and  what  sort  of 
electrics  were  they  which  would  attract  without  being 
rubbed?  How  could  rubbing  a  totally  distinct  and  sepa- 
rate body,  such  as  that  lump  of  amber  or  brimstone,  convert 
a  man's  finger  into  an  electric? 

To  the  ad  hominem  argument  of  his  own  finger  became 
added  another,  ad  feminam,  which  deepened  the  mystery. 
Those  were  the  days  of  colossal  headdresses,  when  the  men 
encased  their  craniums  in  huge  full-bottomed  wigs;  while 
above  every  woman  of  quality  arose  a  complicated  struc- 
ture of  curled  hair,  wire,  ribbons,  artificial  flowers  and 
miscellaneous  trinkets.  The  curling  of  the  hair  in  wigs 
naturally  made  it  dry  and  stiff;  and  especially  so  in 


422         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

these  feminine  towers,  because  the  presence  of  the  milli- 
nery in  the  edifice  precluded  the  use  of  lubricants. 

Now,  the  fine  ladies,  as  I  have  stated,  got  into  the  habit 
of  visiting  the  Royal  Society  and  witnessing  experiments 
because  it  was  fashionable  to  do  so,  and  perhaps  there  were 
wandering  spirits  of  inquiry  pervading  the  air  about  that 
grave  institution  which  sought  more  attractive  lodging- 
places  than  existed  under  the  scrubby  head-coverings  of 
the  philosophers.  At  all  events,  one  of  them  made  its 
abode  beneath  a  more  than  usually  alluring  head-dress, 
the  owner  whereof  came  to  Boyle  and  told  him  that  her 
" knotted  and  combined  locks"  persisted  in  flying  to  her 
cheeks  and  sticking  there,  and  demanded  to  know  the  why 
and  wherefore  of  it.  Boyle  says  that  he  "turned  it  into 
a  Complemental  Raillery,  as  suspecting  there  might  be 
some  trick  in  it."  Being  quickly  disabused  of  that  notion, 
with  the  characteristic  brutality  of  his  sex,  he  insinuated 
"sticky  paint,"  but  retreated  at  once  before  the  instantly- 
ensuing  flash  of  deepened  color.  Then  he  attacked  the 
subject  philosophically — for  it  was  troublesome.  The  ap- 
parent electricity  of  his  finger  was  surprising  enough,  but 
to  find  it  in  women's  cheeks — and  this  time  without  the 
intervention  of  any  rubbed  amber  or  brimstone  at  all — 
was  incomprehensible.  So  he  experimented  further  upon 
his  fair  inquisitor.  "She  is  no  ordinary  virtuosa,"  he 
says,  doubtless  feeling  the  full  conviction  of  the  expres- 
sion, "and  she  very  ingeniously  removed  my  suspicions 
(that  there  was  some  trick  involved),  and,  as  I  requested, 
gave  me  leave  to  satisfy  myself  further  by  desiring  her  to 
hold  her  warm  hand  at  a  convenient  distance  from  one  of 
those  locks  off  and  held  in  the  air." 

It  remains  to  the  lasting  discredit  of  Boyle  that  he  failed 
to  transmit  to  fame  the  name  of  probably  the  first  woman 
who  thus  sacrificed  her  finery  in  the  cause  of  electrical 
science;  but  to  continue: 

c<  For  as  soon  as  she  did  this,  the  lower  end  of  the  lock, 
which  was  free,  applied  itself  presently  to  her  hand,  which 


ROBERT   BOYLE'S   EXPERIMENTS.  423 

seemed  the  more  strange  because  so  great  a  multitude  of 
hair  would  not  have  been  easily  attracted  by  an  ordinary 
electrical  body  that  had  not  been  considerably  large  or  ex- 
traordinarily vigorous.  This  repeated  observation  put  me 
upon  inquiring  of  some  other  young  ladies  whether  they 
had  observed  any  such  like  thing;  but  I  found  little  satis- 
faction to  my  question,  except  from  one  of  them  eminent 
for  being  ingenious,  who  told  me  that  sometimes  she  had 
met  with  these  troublesome  locks,  but  that  all  she  could 
tell  me  of  the  circumstances  which  I  would  have  been 
in  form' d  about  was  that  they  seem'd  to  her  to  flye  most  to 
her  cheeks  when  they  had  been  put  into  a  somewhat  stiff 
curie,  and  when  the  weather  was  frosty. " 

And  her  observation  was  right.  The  stiff  curling  of  the 
hair  had  electrified  it,  and  for  this  the  frosty  weather 
offered  the  best  of  conditions.  History  was  repeating 
itself.  Ages  before,  an  unknown  Phoenician  woman  had 
seen  her  whirling  amber  spindle  pick  up  the  leaves  and 
chaff  from  the  ground.  Now  an  unknown  Englishwoman 
saw  the  same  strange  attraction,  excited  by  her  own  light 
locks,  move  the  hair.  And  the  learned  philosopher  of  the 
1 7th  century  to  whom  she  told  it  first  doubted  it,  and 
ultimately  did  not  understand  what  he  saw  any  better 
than  did  perhaps  the  Phoenician  wise  men  five  thousand 
years  before..  In  fact,  man  has  never  put  proper  faith  and 
credit  in  woman's  discoveries  since  he  accepted  Eve's 
apple. 

As  Boyle,  with  all  his  ingenuity,  could  make  nothing^ 
of  the  problem,  he  took  refuge  in  the  decrepit  mediaeval 
theory  that  the  occurrence  was  due  to  the  "  effects  of  un- 
heeded and,  as  it  were,  fortuitous  causes,"  which,  of  course, 
as  an  explanation,  is  exceeded  in  logical  absurdity  only  by 
that  which  attempts  to  elucidate  an  unknown  matter  by 
giving  an  entirely  new  name  to  it.  One  is  apt  to  wonder 
why  he  did  not  attack  the  difficulty  with  something  of  the 
same  enthusiasm  and  experimental  skill  which  he  brought 
to  bear  upon  his  chemical  researches.  Perhaps  the  reason 


424         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

is  that,  what  with  chemistry  and  pneumatics,  and  especi- 
ally theology,  he  had  abundant  work  to  exhaust  his  ener- 
gies. If  it  were  not  plain  that  he  took  a  genuine  pleasure 
in  sermonizing,  and  often  in  evolving  homilies  concerning 
the  most  trivial  topics  ("on  the  paring  of  a  summer  apple;" 
"on  drinking  water  out  of  the  brim  of  his  hat;"  "on  his 
horse  stumbling,"  savagely  burlesqued  by  Dean  Swift  in 
"Pious  Meditations  on  a  Broomstick"),  we  might  be 
tempted  to  regard  such  efforts  as  misdirected.  But  no 
man,  having  contributed  so  much  to  the  progress  of  his 
age,  ever  satisfied  himself  with  so  harmless  an  amusement. 

Leave  out  Boyle's  sermons,  and  the  contents  of  his  treat- 
ises again  and  again  suggest  Faraday.  The  descriptions 
of  his  experiments  often  have  the  same  ladder-like  quality. 
To  such  investigations  as  he  did  devote  himself  he  brought 
a  most  untiring  persistence.  "Never,"  says  Evelyn,  who 
had  known  him  for  forty  years,  "did  stubborn  Nature 
come  under  his  inquisition,  but  he  extorted  a  confession 
of  all  that  lay  in  her  most  intimate  recesses;  and  what  he 
did  he  as  faithfully  registered  and  frankly  communicated." 
"Glasses,  pots,  chemical  and  mathematical  instruments, 
books  and  bundles  of  papers  did  so  fill  and  crowd  his  bed- 
chamber, that  there  was  just  room  for  a  few  chairs — a 
small  library,  as  learning  more  from  men,  real  experiments 
and  in  his  laboratory,  than  from  books,"  continues  the 
diarist.  Some  one  who  asked  to  inspect  his  library,  he 
conducted  to  a  room  where  he  was  dissecting  a  calf. 

Among  Americans,  Boyle  has  especial  claim  to  remem- 
brance, for  perhaps  to  him,  more  than  to  any  one  else,  is 
due  the  first  implanting  and  encouragement  of  scientific 
thought  in  the  struggling  colonies.  He  was  the  friend  of 
John  Winthrop,  who  joined  the  Royal  Society  as  a 
founder,  when  he  came  to  England  in  1662  for  the  charter 
of  Connecticut.  And  Winthrop  seems  to  have  been  our 
first  scientist.  Bancroft  says  of  him  that  he  took  delight  in 
"the  study  of  nature  according  to  Bacon,"  in  which  way 
he  studied  Indian  corn  and  told  the  Royal  Society  all 


THE  FIRST  ELECTRICAL  OBSERVATION  IN  AMERICA.    425 

about  it.  Later  we  fiiid  Wiiithrop  writing  to  Boyle  from 
Boston,  to  inquire  whether  lightning  could  kill  fish,  as  the 
Indians  had  told  him;  and  Leonard  Hoar  from  Cambridge, 
about  the  Indian  canoe,  anent  which  "if  you  lay  your 
tongue  on  one  side  of  your  mouth  it  may  overset;"  and 
William  Penn  from  Philadelphia,  telling  him  of  the  val- 
uable resources  of  the  tracts  newly  bought  from  the  natives. 
Through  this  correspondence,  there  came  to  be  recorded 
an  observation  which  mightily  disturbed  the  reverend 
John  Clayton,  who  had  settled  in  James  City  in  Virginia. 
He  had  taken  great  interest  in  Boyle's  experiments,  and 
had  sent  him  accounts  of  the  great  luminosity  of  the 
American  fire-flies;  but  the  new  occurence  was  far  more 
surprising.  It  had  been  communicated  to  Clayton  through 
the  following  epistle: 

"MARYLAND,  ANNO  1653. 

"There  happened  about  the  month  of  November  to  one 
Mrs.  Susanna  Sewall,  wife  of  Major  Nicholas  Sewall,  of  the 
province  aforesaid,  a  strange  flashing  of  sparks  (seem'd  to  be 
of  fire),  in  all  the  wearing  apparel  she  put  on,  and  so  continued 
to  Candlemas;  and  in  the  company  of  several,  viz.,  Captain 
John  Harris,  Mr.  Edward  Braines,  Captain  Edward  Poneson, 
etc.,  the  said  Susanna  did  send  several  of  her  wearing  apparel, 
and  when  they  were  shaken  it  would  fly  out  in  sparks  and 
make  a  noise  much  like  unto  bay  leaves  when  flung  into  the 
fire;  and  one  spark  lit  on  Major  Sewall' s  thumb-nail,  and  there 
mtinued  at  least  a  minute  before  it  went  out,  without  any 
teat;  all  which  happened  in  the  company  of 

"WILLIAM  DIGGES." 

Clayton  transmitted  this  to  Boyle  with  the  following  an- 
notation: 

"My  Lady  Baltimore,  his  mother-in-law,  for  some  time  be- 
fore the  death  of  her  son,  Caecilius  Calvert,  had  the  like  hap- 
pened to  her,  which  has  made  Madam  Sewall  much  troubled 
as  to  what  has  happened  to  her.  They  caused  Mrs.  Susanna 
Sewall,  one  day,  to  put  on  her  sister  Digges'  petticoat,  which 
they  had  tried  beforehand  and  would  not  sparkle;  but  at  night 


426          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

when  Madam  Sewall  put  it  off,  it  would  sparkle  as  the  rest  of 
her  garments  did." 

The  astonishing  behavior  of  Madam  Sewall's  garments, 
or  even  of  the  petticoat  of  her  sister  Digges  when  worn 
by  her,  was  outrivaled  by  the  performances  of  Madam 
Digges  herself,  concerning  which  Clayton  writes  to  Boyle 
in  1684.  Whether  it  was  because  Madam  Sewall  had 
lately  departed  for  England  that  Madam  Digges  felt  it  in- 
cumbent upon  herself  to  surpass  the  first-mentioned  lady 
in  luminous  manifestations,  is  unknown;  but  Clayton  says 
that  she  developed  crepitations  and  shining  flames  about 
her  person,  "and,"  adds  the  good  parson,  "how  it  should 
transpire  through  the  pores,  and  not  be  inflamed  by  the 
joint  motion  and  heat  of  the  body,  and  afterwards  so  sud- 
denly to  be  actuated  into  sparks  by  the  shaking  or  brush- 
ing of  the  coats,  raises  much  my  wonder." 

Such  was  the  first  electrical  observation  in  the  New 
World. 

Whether  a  man  of  unusual  inventive  genius  is  a  product 
or  a  factor  of  the  circumstances  about  him  is  always  a 
debatable  question.  We  may  believe,  with  Emerson,  that 
souls  out  of  time,  extraordinary,  prophetic,  are  born  who 
are  rather  related  to  the  system  of  the  world  than  to  their 
particular  age  or  locality,1  or,  contrariwise,  with  Froude, 
that  even  the  greatness  of  a  Shakespeare  is  never  more 
than  the  highest  degree  of  excellence,  which  prevails 
widely,  and  in  fact  forms  the  environment.2  We  may 
regard  all  invention  as  inspiration,  or  maintain  that  the 
presence  of  the  divine  afflatus  is  not  to  be  presumed,  and 
that  upward  progress  is,  on  the  whole,  more  commonly 
made  by  way  of  the  beanstalk  which  springs  from  the 
ground  than  by  way  of  the  chariot  descending  from  the 
skies. 

A  just  apportionment  of  honor  among  men  of  the  same 

1  Worship.  *  Science  of  History. 


! 


ROBERT   HOOKE.  427 

time  who  labor  to  the  same  end  is  the  more  difficult  prob- 
em.  True,  the  reward  rightfully  belongs  to  him  who  ad- 
vances to  the  goal,  and  not  to  the  finger-posts  which  stand 
still,  though  pointing  the  way;  that  it  is  the  last  step 
which  counts,  and  should  count,  if  it  happens  to  carry  one 
over  the  border  of  the  promised  land.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  steep  path  of  discovery  is  never  occupied  only 
by  finger-posts  and  a  single  inspired  wayfarer  continually 
shouting  "Excelsior."  It  is  always  a  ladder  crowded  with 
a  struggling  throng,  sometimes  pushing,  sometimes  carry- 
ing one  another  upward;  and  the  prize  is  often  grasped  by 
the  fortunate  climber  who,  from  the  vantage  of  other  men's 
shoulders,  first  perceives  it  to  be  within  his  reach.  For 
each  "mute  inglorious  Milton  "  the  world  has  held  scores 
of  mute  inglorious  Gilberts  and  Galileos,  with  the  differ- 
ence that  the  unsung  songs  never  helped  to  the  singing  of 
those  that  were  sung,  while  the  stooping  backs  of  such 
lifelong  plodders  as  penurious,  embittered,  disease-racked 
Robert  Hooke1  have  over  and  over  again  made  sturdy 
treads  upon  which  others  of  far  less  merit  have  scrambled 
upward  to  fame  and  fortune. 

I  know  of  no  prototype  for  Hooke,  unless  it  be  Leonardo 
da  Vinci,  and  the  similarity  here  exists  only  in  the  re- 
markable fecundity  of  invention  which  each  displayed, 
due  regard  being  had  to  the  differences  in  the  epochs  in 
which  they  lived.  Hooke  illustrates  the  dictum  of  Froude 
as  perfectly  as  Isaac  Newton  does  that  of  Emerson.  To 
Hooke  no  one  would  concede  inspiration;  to  Newton  few 
would  deny  it.  Hooke  was  the  natural  complement  of 
yle.  Matters  ethical  concerned  him  not  at  all;  of  spirit- 
lality  he  had  none,  and  deductive  reasoning  had  little 
place  in  his  mind;  but  he  devised  and  made  the  air-pump 
with  which  Boyle  discovered  his  law.  He  began  to  con- 

1  See  Waller:  The  Posthumous  Works  of  Robert   Hooke.     London, 
1705.    Durham:  Phil.  Bxp'ts.  and  Obs'ns.  of  the  late  Dr.  R.  Hooke.    Lon- 
don, 1726.     Bib.  Britaunica,  article,   Hooke.     Also   Hooke's   papers   in 
'nil.  Trans. 


428          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

trive  when  a  little  child;  he  stopped  contriving  when  old, 
blind,  bed-ridden  and  dying,  his  shaking  hand  refused  to 
feel  out  to  the  end  the  scrawl  descriptive  of  a  new  instru- 
ment. He  invented  as  he  breathed,  because  he  could  not 
help  doing  so,  and  he  ceased  inventing  when  he  ceased 
breathing.  He  cared  for  nothing  else.  After  he  had 
passed  away,  when  his  few  earthly  belongings  were  sifted 
by  his  fewer  friends,  they  found  a  large  iron  chest  which 
had  been  locked  down  with  the  key  in  it,  with  a  date  of 
the  time,  by  which  it  appeared  to  have  been  shut  up  for 
more  than  thirty  years,  and  the  contents  amounted  in 
value  to  many  thousands  of  pounds  in  gold  and  silver. 
In  the  prime  of  life,  at  thirty-seven,  when  the  world 
looked  bright  before  him,  he  had  conceived  a  great  project 
— that  same  great  project  which  every  inventor  has  lurk- 
ing somewhere  in  his  brain  to  come  forth  in  his  benevolent 
moments — of  founding  a  vast  laboratory  and  museum  and 
library  containing  everything  to  help  every  one  who  needed 
to  be  helped  in  the  study  of  science,  every  one  who  had  felt 
the  needs  which  he  had  felt;  but  when  Hooke  found 
others  not  only  climbing  his  ladder,  but  making  a  ladder 
of  him,  he  locked  up  the  hoard  and  waited  for  the  mil- 
lennium when  the  inventor  and  his  kind  shall  dwell  in 
perfect  peace,  mutual  love  and  harmony,  and  all  their 
competitions  be  squared  by  the  Golden  Rule;  a  result  even 
the  dim  outline  of  which  in  the  blue  of  the  furthest  hori- 
zon, it  is  needless  to  add,  we  are  still  as  unable  as  ever  to 
discern. 

Robert  Hooke  was  indeed  the  typical  inventor.  To  say 
that  his  inventions  are  numbered  by  hundreds  conveys 
little  in  these  days  of  inventive  attenuations.  Their 
diversity,  however,  was  extraordinary,  and  now  and 
then  an  idea  flashes  out  which,  in  the  light  of  after  dis- 
covery, is  surprising.  From  Boyle's  air-pump  he  turns  to 
the  flying  machine,  tries  to  construct  "artificial  muscles," 
and  then  a  contrivance  to  raise  a  man  by  "horizontal 
vanes  a  little  aslope  to  the  wind,"  toward  which  last  there 


ROBERT  HOOKE'S  EXPERIMENTS.  429 

is  a  tendency  now  to  come  back.  He  experimented  in 
about  every  known  branch  of  physics,  but  he  shone 'most 
as  a  contriver  of  measuring  instruments.  In  this  respect 
no  predecessor  approaches  him  in  ingenuity  and  skill;  very 
few  have  since  equaled  him.  He  was  the  first  curator  of 
the  Royal  Society,  and  whenever  anything  was  to  be  in- 
vestigated, it  was  Hooke  who  evolved  the  mechanical 
devices  for  doing  so.  Clocks  and  chronometers,  astronom- 
ical apparatus  in  great  variety,  instruments  for  measuring 
specific  weight,  refraction,  velocity  of  falling  bodies,  freez- 
ing and  boiling  points,  strength  of  gunpowder,  vibrations 
of  dense  bodies,  degrees  on  the  earth,  magnetism,  and  so 
on  through  such  a  variety  and  multiplicity  of  mechanisms 
that  it  may  be  imagined  that  of  the  many  'scopes,  'graphs, 
and  meters  which  now  sharpen  the  senses  of  modern  physi- 
cists, few  exist  in  which  something  originally  emanating 
from  Hooke's  tireless  brain  cannot  be  found.  His  volute 
spring,  opposing  and  counterbalancing  the  motion  of  a 
rotary  arbor  in  all  positions,  which  made  the  pendulum 
clock  into  the  portable  chronometer,  now  weighs  the  pres- 
sure of  the  electric  current,  and  in  the  same  way  has  ren- 
dered electrical  instruments  portable.1  And  as  for  the 
foreshadowing  of  modern  achievements,  we  are  told  by 
Richard  Waller,  secretary  of  the  Royal  Society,  his  bi- 
ographer and  immediate  personal  friend,  that  uhe  shewed 
a  way  of  making  musical  and  other  sounds  by  the  striking 
of  the  teeth  of  several  brass  wheels  proportionally  cut  as 
to  their  numbers  and  turned  very  fast  round,  in  which  it 
was  observable  that  the  equal  or  proportional  strokes  of 
the  teeth,  that  is  2  to  i,  4  to  3,  etc.,  made  the  musical 
notes,  but  the  unequal  strokes  of  the  teeth  more  answered 
to  the  sound  of  the  voice  in  speaking" — which  is  remark- 

1  Butler  in  Hudibras  alludes  to  Hooke's  spiral  spring  and  its  effects  in 
the  lines: 

"  And  did  not  doubt  to  bring  the  wretches 
To  serve  for  pendulums  to  watches 
Which,  modern  virtuosi  say, 
Incline  for  hanging  every  way." 


430          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

ably  suggestive  of  the  principle  and  operation  of  the 
phonograph. 

Hooke's  essay  on  the  method  of  improving  natural  phil- 
osophy is  a  forecast  of  possibilities  replete  with  suggestion. 
4 'There  may  be  a  possibility,"  he  says,  uthat  by  otocous- 
ticons1  many  sounds  very  far  distant  (I  had  almost  said  as 
far  off  as  some  planets)  may  be  made  sensible.  I  cannot, 
I  confess,  myself  so  far  throw  off  prejudice  as  not  to  look 
upon  it  as  a  very  extravagant  conjecture;  but  yet  methinks 
I  should  have  the  same  thoughts  of  a  conjecture  to  find  out 
a  help  for  the  eye  to  see  the  smaller  parts  and  rocks  of  the 
moon  and  to  discover  their  height  and  shadow,  before  I 
had  seen  or  known  the  excellent  contrivance  of  telescopes." 
So,  perhaps,  he  might  not  have  thought  the  telephone  or 
even  the  photophone — or  the  hearing  of  explosions  in  the 
sun — quite  so  marvelous  as  did  those  who  came  after  him. 

He  affirmed  that  electric  light  is  due  to  the  same  cause 
as  heat — that  is,  internal  motion  in  the  parts  of  the  body. 
To  produce  electric  luminosity,  however,  it  is  not  enough, 
he  says,  merely  to  cause  this  internal  motion,  but  certain 
bodies — such  as  diamonds,  sugar,  black  silk,  clean  warmed 
linen,  or  a  cat's  back — must  be  rubbed  and  agitated  up 
to  a  certain  degree,  and  then  "the  more  you  rub  it  the 
more  it  shines,  and  any  little  stroke  upon  it  with  the  nail 
of  one's  finger  when  it  so  shines,  will  make  it  seem  to 
flash."  That  was  written  in  1680,  and  it  appears  to  have 

^tocousticons  were  probably  speaking  tubes,  an  invention  as  old  as 
the  Egyptians,  and  then  newly  coming  into  vogue.  Burton  (Anat.  Mel., 
part  2,  |  2,  mem.  4.),  speaks  of  them  as  serving  to  aid  hearing,  as  tele- 
scopes do  sight.  Evelyn  (Diary,  13  July,  1654),  notes  a  hollow  statue 
contrived  by  Bishop  Wilkins,  "  which  gave  a  voice  and  uttered  Words  by 
a  long,  concealed  pipe  which  went  to  its  mouth,  whilst  one  speaks 
through  it  at  a  good  distance,"  something  after  the  fashion  of  the  talking 
head  of  Albertus  Magnus.  The  aroused  interest  in  the  transmission  of 
sound  resulted  in  the  invention  of  the  speaking  trumpet  by  Sir  Samuel 
Morland  in  1671.  Butler's  lines  in  Hudibras 

"  And  speaks  through  hollow  empty  soul 

As  through  a  trunk  or  whispering  hole — 
allude  to  this. 


ROBERT   HOCKK   ON   ELECTRIC   LIGHT.  431 

been  the  first  recognition  of  the  electric  flash — the  spark — 
in  contradistinction  to  the  glow.  This  was  also  the  first 
attempt  to  explain  light  electrically  caused,  as  being  in 
common  with  all  light  a  "peculiar  kind  of  internal  motion 
of  the  particles  of  a  body,"  but  specifically  due  to  the 
nature  of  the  body  itself,  the  mode  of  exciting  the  motion 
(rubbing)  and  the  degree  of  excitation  produced.  More- 
over, he  went  further  and  asserted  that  there  is  "an  inter- 
nal vibrative  motion  of  the  parts  of  the  electric  bodies,  and 
so  soon  as  ever  that  motion  ceases,  the  electricity  also 
ceases  " — so  that,  not  only  did  he  find  the  particular  mani- 
festation of  electricity  as  light  due  to  vibration,  but  as- 
cribed the  entire  electrical  phenomenon,  even  when 
appearing  as  attraction,  to  the  same  cause. 

Hooke's  theory  of  light,  following  substantially  that  of 
Descartes,  and  involving  the  assumption  that  space  is 
filled  with  something  that  transmits  light  instantaneously, 
was  overthrown  by  Roemer's  observations  of  Jupiter's  / 
moons  in  1676,  resulting  in  a  determination  of  the  velocity 
of  light.1  Then  came  Newton's  emission  theory,  which 
yielded  to  the  now-accepted  undulatory  hypothesis  of 
Young;  but,  none  the  less,  such  concepts  of  the  electrical 
phenomena  as  Hooke  made  were  a  long  way  ahead  of  the 
"  unctuous  steams"  and  "rebounding  effluvia"  which  had 
preceded  them.* 

So  far  as  is  known,  Hooke  made  no  electrical  or  mag- 
netic discovery  of  major  importance.  The  catholicity  of 
his  work  was  against  his  doing  so.  It  is  seldom  that  the 
inventor  who  expends  his  energy  in  an  infinitude  of  de- 
tails ever  leaves  behind  him  any  one  great  monumental 
achievement.  There  is  an  apparent  gap  between  the  end- 
less mechanical  refinements  of  Hooke's  multitudinous  in- 
struments and  his  dynamical  theories  of  heat,  .light  and 
electricity,  which  it  seems  should  be  filled  by  tangible  ac- 
complishments of  a  higher  order  than  the  former.  If  he 
did  so,  he  concealed  them;  and  again  revealed  another  one 

*Tyndall:  On  Light.     London,  1875,  45. 


432         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

of  those  strange  characteristics  which  often  drive  the  in- 
ventor to  hiding  his  work  from  the  world,  as  a  bird  hides 
her  eggs  from  the  serpent. 

u  He  was  in  the  beginning  of  his  being  made  known  to 
the  learned,"  says  Waller,  "very  communicative  of  his 
philosophical  discoveries  and  inventions,  till  some  acci- 
dents made  him,  to  a  crime,  close  and  reserved.  He  laid 
the  cause  upon  some  persons  challenging  his  discoveries 
for  their  own,  taking  occasion  from  his  hints  to  perfect 
what  he  had  not;  which  made  him  say  he  would  suggest 
nothing  till  he  had  time  to  perfect  it  himself,  which  had 
been  the  reason  that  many  things  are  lost  which  he  af- 
firmed he  knew." 


The  Royal  Society  was  not  the  first  of  the  institutions 
for  the  promotion  of  experimental  science,  the  organiza- 
tion of  which  followed  as  a  consequence  of  the  renewed 
interest  in  physical  discovery  which,  in  the  last  half  of  the 
century,  spread  throughout  Europe.  In  1657  the  Floren- 
tine Academy  del  Cimento  was  established  under  the  im- 
mediate patronage  of  Prince  Leopold,  of  Tuscany,  (a 
potentate  whose  interest  in  natural  science  rivaled  that  of 
Charles),  and  attracted  to  itself  many  of  the  most  eminent 
Italian  philosophers.  Its  transactions  were  not  published, 
however,  until  1667,  when  it  went  out  of  existence;  so  that 
the  exact  dates  when  the  experiments  recorded  were 
made,  cannot  be  assigned.  Although  the  researches  in- 
cluded the  first  demonstration  of  the  incompressibility  of 
water,  and  mainly  related  to  air  pressure,  physical  condi- 
tions in  vacuo  and  effects  of  high  and  low  temperatures, 
those  on  electricity  and  magnetism  which  are  interspersed 
show  notable  insight  and  skill. 

In  magnetism,  many  attempts  were  made  to  find  a  sub- 
stance which  would  cut  off  the  influence  of  the  lodestone, 
but  without  avail;  and  the  Academy  records  that  the  vir- 
tue is  neither  barred  nor  impaired  by  any  interposed  body, 


THE   FLORENTINE   ACADEMY.  433 

solid  or  fluid,  except  a  plate  of  iron  and  steel.  Of  the 
electrical  experiments  one  is  of  great  importance,  for  it  is 
the  same  which  so  much  puzzled  Robert  Boyle.  The 
Academy,  however,  was  by  no  means  mystified,  nor  need 
Boyle  have  been  so  had  he  read  the  clear  description  of  it 
which  was  already  in  the  archives  of  the  Royal  Society, 
to  which  the  transactions  of  the  Florentine  Academy  had 
been  solemnly  presented  by  emissaries  from  Leopold  in 
1667.  How  important  this  experiment  was,  will  now  soon 
appear;  meanwhile,  note  how  clear  the  Florentine  philoso- 
phers' perception  of  it,  in  contrast  to  Boyle's  obscurity. 

"It  is  commonly  believed,"  they  say,1  "that  amber  at- 
tracts the  little  bodies  to  itself;  but  the  action  is  indeed  . 
mutual,  not  more  properly  belonging  to  the  amber  than 
to  the  bodies  moved,  by  which  also  itself  is  attracted;  or 
rather  it  applies  itself  to  them.  Of  this  we  made  the  exper- 
iment, and  found  that  the  amber  being  hung  at  liberty  by 
a  thread  in  the  air,  or  counterpoised  upon  a  point  like  a 
magnetical  needle,  when  it  was  rubbed  and  heated,  made 
a  stoop  to  those  little  bodies  which  likewise  proportionally 
presented  themselves  thereto  and  readily  obeyed  its  call.'*' 
Such  was  the  first  announcement  of  the  mutual  attraction 
of  electrified  bodies — corresponding  to  the  mutual  attrac- 
tion of  magnet  and  iron  which  Gilbert  had  recognized. 


Let  us  now  recall  some  facts  which,  to  the  intelligent 
student  of  physics  attending  the  meetings  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety toward  the  end  of  the  iyth  century,  might  seem  as 
fairly  well  established. 

Standing  apart  by  themselves,  he  perceives  four  things, 
each  able  to  control  mechanically  other  things  even  at  a 
distance  and  without  apparent  means  of  communication. 
These  are  first,  the  sun  which  controls  the  earth ;  second, 

1  Saggi  di  Natural!  Esperienze  fatte  nelPAccad.  del  Cimento.      Flor- 
ence, 2d  ed.,  1691.     Waller:  Essayes  of  Nat.  Exp'ts  made  in  the  Acade- 
mie  del  Cimento.     London,  1684,  128. 
28 


Q) 


434         THE   INTELLECTUAL    RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

the  earth  which  controls  the  moon  and  all  sublunary  bodies; 
third,  the  electric  which  controls  all  light  objects;  and 
fourth,  the  magnet  which  controls  iron  or  steel.  The  vat- 
traction  between  sun  and  earth,  or  earth  and  moon,  is  suf- 
ficiently accounted  for  to  most  people  of  the  time  as  a 
creative  act.  The  fall  of  a  stone  to  the  ground,  our  stu- 
dent might  consider  to  be  the  return  of  a  part  to  its  origin, 
source  or  reservoir.  But  electrics  and  the  lodestone  he 
knows  to  be  physical  outlaws.  True,  there  is  a  choice  of 
several  theories  wherefrom  to  select,  but  on  the  whole,  no 
law  seems  exactly  to  reach  them,  and  one  is  quite  safe  in 
holding  that  they  act  for  the  same  reason  that  the  dogs  in 
good  Dr.  Watts'  verse  (if  it  had  then  been  written),  de- 
light to  bark  and  bite;  ufor  'tis  their  nature  to."  But 
what  is  actually  seen  to  be  true,  concerning  either  lode- 
stone  and  iron  or  electric  and  its  objects?  This;  that  when 
the  two  bodies  (as  stone  and  iron)  are  placed  one  in  prox- 
imity to  the  other,  although  separated  by  a  considerable 
interval,  not  only  will  the  stone  influence  the  iron,  but 
the  iron  will  influence  the  stone.  Gilbert  had  already 
described  what  he  called  the  mutual  concourse  of  lode- 
stone  and  iron,  and  Boyle  had  as  plainly  seen  the  swing- 
ing amber,  in  its  turn,  attracted  by  the  rubbing  cloth. 
Thus  both  had  observed,  and  others  were  now  observing, 
the  two  ends,  so  to  speak,  of  what  happened,  the  inherent 
attractive  power  of  the  magnet  or  electric  at  one  extremity 
and  the  movement  of  the  attracted  body  at  the  other. 

Still  another  fact  is  also  perceived,  namely,  that  around 
the  electric  there  is  a  certain  space  or  field  in  which  light 
bodies  are  either  attracted  or  repelled,  and  similarly  that 
around  the  magnet  there  is  also  a  certain  space  or  field 
within  which  iron  is  attracted,  like  effects  not  appearing 
upon  bodies  located  outside  of  these  fields.  That  the 
power  of  magnet  and  electric  is  inherent  to  and  resides  in 
the  substance  of  each,  is  commonly  believed.  How  that 
power  became  exerted  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  subject 
of  many  speculations,  all  of  which,  generically  considered, 


ACTION   AT  A   DISTANCE.  435 

had  now  become  reducible  to  two — that  there  are  physical 
emanations  from  stone  or  electric  which  come  into  contact, 
with  the  attracted  body  and  so  move  it,  or  that  there  are 
no  emanations,  no  material  linkage  of  any  sort,  but  that 
either  magnet  or  electric  has  the  capacity  of  "action  at  a 
distance,"  a  term  which  obviously  merely  describes  with- 
out explaining.  As  measuring  instruments  had  increased 
in  numbers,  and  experimental  tests  had  become  more 
rigorous,  so  the  emanation  doctrine  had  lost  ground,  for 
the  simple  reason  that  the  imagined  effluviums  refused  to 
reveal  themselves,  and  correspondingly  the  u  action  at  a 
distance"  notion  had  gained  in  favor.  Hence  it  is  not 
uncommon  at  this  time,  when  Mr.  Isaac  Newton  announces 
hfs  great  discovery  of  universal  gravitation,  to  consider  the 
magnet  and  electric  as  possessed  of  a  certain  occult  capacity 
for  moving  far- off  objects.  In  other  words,  people  had  be- 
gun to  realize  that  they  did  not  know  anything  about  the 
matter,  in- which  circumstances  a  little  mystery  has,  in  all 
ages,  been  regarded  as  quite  human,  and  not  unconducive 
to  the  preservation  of  a  proper  self-respect. 

When  Newton  fell  into  the  famous  reverie  in  his  garden, 
the  magnetical-cosmical  theory  which  Gilbert  had  pro- 
posed had  been  for  some  time  moribund.  The  modification 
of  it  which  Kepler  had  adopted  had  preserved  its  vitality 
somewhat,  although  Kepler  had  used  it  for  little  else  than 
a  scaffolding.  It  had  not  served  Gilbert's  purposes  in  lend- 
ing any  material  support  to  the  Copernican  doctrine  now 
firmly  established,  and  in  fact  had  acted  rather  to  divert 
attention  from  the  experiments  on  which  it  was  founded, 
and  so  to  obscure  rather  than  enhance  its  author's  fame. 
There  was  also  a  strong  inclination  among  English  phil- 
osophers, never  stronger  than  just  before  Newton's  advent, 
to  reject  all  explanations  of  the  movements  of  the  planets 
based  on  analogies  and  guesses,  and  in  place  thereof  to 
regard  their  motions  and  relations  as  consequent  upon 
physical  laws,  and  capable  of  mathematical  determination. 
Hooke  was  so  far  in  the  van  of  this  thought  that  when 


436         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Newton's  discovery  was  announced  lie  claimed  it  as  al- 
ready his  own,  though  without  sufficient  grounds. 

While  the  Gilbertian  theory  would  probably  have  soon 
succumbed  to  the  changed  conditions,  the  Newtonian 
conception  more  directly  led  to  its  disappearance,  not  by 
refuting  so  much  as  by  displacing  it.  Why,  is  best  shown 
by  tracing  the  contrast  between  the  two  theories,  and  at 
the  same  time  this  will  bring  us  by  the  shortest  route  to 
the  vantage  ground  whence  Newton's  remarkable  part  in 
the  development  of  electricity  can  be  most  clearly  dis- 
cerned. 

"The  force  which  emanates  from  the  moon,"  says  Gil- 
bert, u  reaches  to  the  earth,  and  in  like  manner  the  mag- 
netic virtue  of  the  earth  pervades  the  region  of  the  moon; 
both  correspond  and  conspire  by  the  joint  action  of  both 
according  to  a  proportion  and  conformity  of  motions."1 
Newton  says  that  the  earth  draws  the  moon  and  the  moon 
the  earth. 

"The  earth,"  continues  Gilbert,  "has  more  effect  be- 
cause of  its  superior  mass."  "The  motion  which  the 
moon  receives  from  the  earth  bears  to  the  motion  which 
the  earth-  receives*  from  the  moon  the  same  proportion  as 
the  mass  of  the  earth  bears  to  the  mass  of  the  moon,"  says 
Newton,  with  mathematical  brevity. 

1  Gilbert:  Physiologia  Nova.     Amsterdam,  1651. 

Bishop  Wilkins,  writing  in  1638,  says: 

"This  great  Globe  of  Earth  and  Water  hath  been  proved  by  many 
Observations  to  participate  of  Magnetical  Properties.  And  as  the  Load- 
stone does  cast  forth  its  own  Vigour  round  about  its  Body,  in  a  Magnet- 
ical Compass,  so  likewise  does  our  Earth.  The  difference  is,  that  it  is 
another  kind  of  Affection  which  causes  the  Union  betwixt  the  Iron  and 
Loadstone  from  that  which  makes  Bodies  move  unto  the  Earth.  The 
former  is  some  kind  of  nearness  and  similitude  in  their  Natures,  for 
which  Philosophy,  as  yet,  has  not  found  a  particular  Name.  The  latter 
does  not  arise  from  that  peculiar  Quality  whereby  the  Earth  is  properly 
distinguish'd  from  the  other  Elements,  which  is  its  Condensity.  Of 
which  the  more  any  thing  does  participate,  by  so  much  the  stronger  will 
be  the  desire  of  union  to  it.  So  Gold  and  other  Metals  which  are  most 
close  in  their  Composition  are  likewise  most  swift  in  their  Motion  of 
Descent." — The  Discovery  of  a  New  World. 


THE  THEORIES   OF   ISAAC   NEWTON.  437 

And  thus  both  Gilbert  and  Newton  agree  that  earth  and 
moon  attract  one  another,  and  in  proportion  to  the  quan- 
tity of  matter  in  each.  So  much  for  similarities  which 
are  certainly  striking  enough. 

But  Gilbert  regarded  the  earth  as  emitting  a  magnetic 
virtue,  and  the  moon  (which  he  does  not  suppose  to  be  a 
magnet)  also  as  emitting  a  virtue,  but  of  a  different  nature. 
Here  Newton  differs  and  moves  ahead.  The  attractive 
power  in  the  members  of  the  solar  system,  he  declares,  is 
no  different,  but  of  the  same  nature  in  all,  for  it  acts  in 
each  in  the  same  proportion  to  the  distance  and  in  the 
same  manner  upon  every  particle  of  matter. 

Not  even  is  this  power  new  or  unfamiliar.  It  is  "one 
no  different  from  that  existing  on  earth  which  we  call 
gravity."  With  what  was  then  called  gravity,  Gilbert 
was  well  acquainted,  for  he  tells  how  the  earth  not  only 
attracts  magnetic  bodies  but  also  "all  others  in  which  the 
primary  force  is  absent  by  reason  of  material."  u  And  - 
this  inclination,"  he  adds,  "in  terrene  substances  is  com- 
monly called  'gravity.'  "  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  how- 
ever, that  Gilbert  had  never  assumed  that  the  gravity  of 
the  earth  could  control  aught  but  earthly  things.  It  could 
make  a  stone  fall  to  the  ground  to  "the  source,  the  mother 
where  all  (parts  of  the. earth)  are  united  and  safely  kept." 
The  idea  that  mother  earth  could  govern  by  her  gravity  ^x 
attraction  "th*  inconstant  moon"  never  entered  his  head. 

The  magnetic  attraction  of  that  great  magnet,  the  earth, 
on  the  other  hand,  was  to  him  a  different  attribute  alto- 
gether; and  it  was  not  at  all  difficult  to  imagine  the  colos- 
sal enclosing  sphere  of  magnetic  virtue  as  sufficiently 
enormous  to  "pervade  the  regions  of  the  moon." 

But  that  was  imagination,  which  rigorous  proof  pushed 
aside  as  a  great  steamer  displaces  fog.  Then  it  was  grav- 
ity which  became  colossal,  and,  under  the  mighty  concep- 
tion of  Newton,  grew  into  an  attraction  as  broad  as  the 
universe  itself — existing  between  all  masses,  all  sorts  of 
matter,  always,  everywhere;  between  worlds  as  well  as  be- 


438          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

tween  sand  grains.  As  a  cause  it  explained  all  of  the 
observed  effects,  and  "more  causes,"  said  Newton  senten- 
tiously,  "are  not  to  be  received  into  philosophy  than  are 
sufficient  to  explain  the  appearances  of  nature."  The 
magnetic  attraction  of  the  earth,  in  any  event,  he  regarded 
as  "very  small  and  unknown."1  To  argue  whether  our 
little  globe  governs  its  littler  satellite  by  magnetism  or 
electricity  or  any  other  power,  virtue,  agency,  or  force, 
became  needless  when  the  mode  in  which  the  Almighty 
had  ordered  the  mechanism  of  all  worlds  stood  definitely 
revealed. 

So  vanished  Gilbert's  theory.     The  sun's 

"Magnetic  beam,  that  gently  warms 
The  universe  and  to  each  inward  part, 
With  gentle  penetration,  though  unseen 
Shoots  invisible  virtue  ev'n  to  the  deep,"2 

gilded  the  pages  of  the  great  epic  and  then  disappeared, 
to  return  only  in  later  days  when  light  and  electricity  and 
magnetism  began  to  be  as  one. 

So  Newton  proved  that  whatever  other  influence  elec- 
tricity and  magnetism  may  exert  as  cosmical  forces,  it  is 
not  necessary  to  assume  the  action  of  either  to  account 
for  the  motions  of  the  planets.  And  as  no  one  had 
hitherto  seen,  for  either,  any  other  useful  purpose  except 
the  ordering  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  it  followed  that  this 
left  them  with  their  "occupation  gone;"  a  mere  nebulous 
cloud  of  facts  and  fancies  gathered  about  the  nucleus 
which  Gilbert  had  segregated  from  the  pre-existing  chaos. 
But  then,  just  as  such  a  body — a  vagrant  new-born  world 
perhaps — finding  itself  within  the  control  of  a  greater  orb, 
becomes  under  Newton's  precepts  a  satellite,  forever  after 
pursuing  its  orderly  round  in  the  celestial  mechanism;  so, 
at  his  bidding,  this  unrelated  mass  of  knowledge  fell  into 
its  appointed  place  and  became  obedient  to  the  reign  of 

JPrincipia,  B.  III.,  Prop  xxxvii. 
2  Paradise  Lost,  Book  III. 


ISAAC  NEWTON.  439 

law.  There  is  no  event  in  this  history  more  significant, 
more  epoch-making,  than  this. 

It  will  be  remembered,  that  among  the  fundamental 
principles  of  physics  are  the  three  laws  of  motion  which 
Newton  formulated;  the  first  stating  the  effect  of  force 
upon  a  body  left  to  itself;  the  second  defining  the  relation 
of  the  change  of  motion  of  the  body  to  the  force  impressed, 
and  the  third — that  perennial  stumbling-block  to  all  the 
perpetual-motion  seekers  of  the  past  and  most  u  new 
motor"  contrivers  of  the  present — that  action  and  reaction 
are  equal  and  in  contrary  directions.  This  last  obviously 
defines  the  effect  of  the  action  of  two  bodies  one  upon  the 
other — that  of  the  first  upon  the  second  being  equaled  by 
the  contrary  reaction  of  the  second  upon  the  first;  or,  to 
borrow  Newton's  own  illustration,  "If  you  press  a  stone 
with  your  finger,  the  finger  is  also  pressed  by  the  stone. 
If  a  horse  draws  a  stone  tied  to  a  rope,  the  horse  will  be 
equally  drawn  back  toward  the  stone;  for  the  distended 
rope,  by  the  same  endeavor  to  relax  or  unbend  itself,  will 
draw  the  horse  as  much  toward  the  stone,  as  it  does  the 
stone  toward  the  horse,  and  will  obstruct  the  progress  of 
the  one  as  much  as  it  advances  that  of  the  other."1 

Under  this  law,  Newton  makes  the  first  close  linkage  of 
gravity,  electricity  and  magnetism.  If  the  sun  draws  a 
planet,  so  that  planet  draws  the  sun ;  if  the  amber  draws 
chaff,  so  that  chaff  draws  the  amber;  if  the  lodestone  draws 
iron,  so  the  iron  draws  the  stone.  The  law  is  the  same 
for  all.  It  is  the  law  of  stress.2 

But  the  bond  is  closer  than  this.  He  mentions  the  com- 
mon habit  of  referring  the  reacting  forces  to  that  body  of 

1  Principia,  Axioms  or  Laws  of  Motion. 

2 "  Every  force,  in  fact,  is  one  of  a  pair  of  equal  opposite  ones — one 
component,  that  is  of  a  stress— either  like  the  stress  exerted  by  a  piece 
of  stretched  elastic,  which  pulls  the  two  things  to  which  it  is  attached 
with  equal  force  in  opposite  directions  and  which  is  called  a  tension;  or 
like  the  stress  of  compressed  railway  buffers,  or  of  a  piece  of  squeezed 
india  rubber,  which  exerts  an  equal  push  each  way  and  is  called  a  pres- 
sure." (Lodge.) 


440         THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

the  two  which  is  least  moved;  as  when  we  call  the  attrac- 
tion of  sun  and  planet  the  attractive  power  of  the  sun. 
Yet  more  correctly,  he  says,  we  should  regard  the  force  as 
acting  between  the  sun  and  earth,  between  the  sun  and 
Jupiter,  between  the  earth  and  moon,  for  both  bodies  are 
moved  by  it,  in  the  same  manner  as  when  tied  together  by 
a  rope,  which  shrinks  on  becoming  wet,  and  so  draws 
them  each  one  to  the  other.  Equally  true  is  this — another 
link  forged — of  electrical  and  magnetic  attractions;  for  al- 
though as  to  the  nature  of  this  he  has  no  hypothesis  to 
offer  ("Hypotheses  non  fingo,"  is  his  motto  everywhere), 
yet  concerning  it  he  says,  if  we  would  speak  more  cor- 
rectly, and  not  extend  the  sense  of  our  expressions  beyond 
what  we  see,  we  can  only  say  that  the  neighborhood  of  a 
lodestone  and  a  piece  of  iron  is  attended  with  a  power, 
whereby  the  lodestone  and  the  iron  are  drawn  toward  each 
other;1  and  the  rubbing  of  electrical  bodies  gives  rise  to  a 
power  whereby  those  bodies  and  other  substances  are  mu- 
tually attracted.  Thus,  we  would  also  understand  in  the 
power  of  gravity,  that  the  two  bodies  are  mutually  made 
to  approach  each  other  by  the  action  of  that  power.2 

Such  was  the  first  suggestion  that  the  seat  of  electric 
and  magnetic  forces  is  not  in  the  electric,  or  the  substance 
attracted  by  it,  or  the  magnet,  or  the  iron,  but  in  the  in- 
tervening medium;  whatever  the  last  may  be.3 

1 "  I  made  the  experiment  on  the  lodestone  and  iron.  If  these  placed 
apart  in  proper  vessels  are  made  to  float  by  one  another  in  standing 
water,  neither  of  them  will  propel  the  other;  but  by  being  equally  at- 
tracted, they  will  sustain  each  other's  pressure  and  rest  at  last  in  an  equi- 
librium."— Principia  cor.  vi. 

2Pemberton:  A  view  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton's  Philosophy.     London,  1728, 

254- 

3 "  We  may  conceive  the  physical  relation  between  the  electrified  bodies, 
either  as  the  result  of  the  state  of  the  intervening  medium,  or  as  the  re- 
sult of  a  direct  action  between  the  electrified  bodies  at  a  distance.  If  we 
adopt  the  latter  conception,  we  may  determine  the  law  of  the  action,  but 
we  can  go  no  further  in  speaking  on  its  cause.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
we  adopt  the  conception  of  action  through  a  medium,  we  are  led  to  in- 
quire into  the  nature  of  that  action  in  each  part  of  the  medium.  .  .  . 

If  we  now  proceed  to  investigate  the  mechanical  state  of  the  medium 


NEWTON  ON   LINES  OF  FORCE.  441 

But  he  does  not  stop  here.  To  follow  him  further  we 
must  look  backward  to  find  the  ladder  he  is  climbing;  for 
Newton  has  a  way  of  not  leaving  his  ladders  readily  avail- 
able, and  sometimes  he  is  charged  with  pulling  them  up 
after  him. 

When  Peregrinus  placed  his  bit  of  iron  in  different  posi- 
tions on  the  lodestone  globe,  he  saw  it  stand  upright  at  the 
poles,  and  at  various  inclinations  between  poles  and  equa- 
tor. Gilbert,  three  centuries  afterward,  observed  the  same 
thing;  but  neither  perceived  that  a  line  drawn  lengthwise 
through  the  needle  in  all  its  positions  would  be  curved  and 
extend  between  the  poles.  Porta,  multiplying  the  piece 
of  iron  many  times  in  the  form  of  filings  sprinkled  about 
the  stone,  saw  them  branch  out  from  the  poles  like  hairs, 
but  not  in  continuous  curves;  while  to  Cabseus  they  seemed 
to  fall  into  lines  more  plainly  curved,  but  still  not  arching 
from  pole  to  pole.  Then  came  Descartes,  who  found  what' 
all  had  missed,  namely,  that  not  only  did  the  filings  fall 
into  regular  curved  lines  from  pole  to  pole,  but  that  their 
arrangement  in  such  lines  in  that  intervening  space  must 
be  the  effect  of  some  force  there  existing  and  acting  on 
them.  This  Christopher  Wren  had  also  seen,  and  Sprat, 
in  recording  his  experiment,  even  refers  to  the  "lines  of 
directive  force."  Not  only  did  Descartes  note  these  lines 
arching  between  opposite  poles  of  the  same  magnet,  but 
as  extending  between  the  poles  of  two  magnets  and  seem- 
ingly connecting  them.  These  curves,  which  the  filings 
traced  for  Descartes,  occupy  the  magnetic  field  or  Gilbert's 
orb  of  virtue,  and,  when  so  rendered  visible,  map  it.  And 

on  the  hypothesis  that  the  mechanical  action  observed  between  electri- 
fied bodies  is  exerted  through  and  by  means  of  the  medium,  as  in  the 
familiar  instances  of  the  action  of  one  body  on  another,  by  means  of  the 
tension  of  a  rope  or  the  pressure  of  a  rod,  we  find  that  the  medium  must 
be  in  a  state  of  mechanical  stress.  .  .  . 

The  nature  of  this  stress  is,  as  Faraday  pointed  out,  a  tension  along 
the  lines  of  force  combined  with  an  equal  pressure  in  all  directions  at 
right  angles  to  these  lines."  Maxwell:  A  Treatise  on  Electricity  and 
Magnetism.  3d  ed.  London,  1892,  vol.  I.,  63. 


442         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

as  a  piece  of  iron  placed  in  the  lodestone's  field  becomes 
itself  a  magnet  by  induction,  these  lines  extend  through 
the  intervening  space  between  the  stone  and  the  iron. 

Now  turn  to  Newton,  remembering  that  it  was  the 
action-at-a-distance  theory  which  confronted  him  as  the 
current  explanation  of  attraction.  He  says: 

"That  gravity  should  be  innate,  inherent,  essential  to 
matter,  so  that  one  body  may  act  upon  another  at  a  dis- 
tance through  a  vacuum,  without  the  mediation  of  any- 
thing else  by  and  through  which  their  action  and  force 
may  be  conveyed  from  one  to  another,  is  to  me  so  great  an 
absurdity  that  I  believe  no  man  who  has  in  philosophical 
matters  a  competent  faculty  of  thinking  can  ever  fall  into 
it.  Gravity  must  be  caused  by  an  agent  acting  constantly 
according  to  certain  laws;  but  whether  this  agent  be  ma- 
terial or  immaterial,  I  have  left  to  the  consideration  of  my 
readers. m 

Again  and  again  Faraday  quotes  this  passage.  As  Tyn- 
dall  says,2  he  loved  to  do  so. 

He  found  from  it,  to  use  his  own  words,  that  Newton 
was  "an  unhesitating  believer  in  physical  lines  of  gravi- 
tating force."3  But  in  his  co-ordination  of  electricity, 
magnetism  and  gravity  under  the  law  of  action  and  reac- 
tion, Newton  makes  himself  even  clearer  as  to  this,  than 
in  the  passage  which  Faraday  selects.  For  what  is  the 
imaginary  rope  connecting  the  two  bodies  and  contracting 
to  draw  them  together  but  the  direct  expression  of  a  phy- 
sical line,  not  only  of  gravitating,  but  of  electric  and  mag- 
netic force?  He  not  only  sustains  the  last  indirectly,  as 
Faraday  seems  to  intimate,  but  directly.4 

'Third  Letter  to  Dr.  Bentley.  Horsley:  Opera.  London,  1782,  vol. 
iv.,  p.  438. 

2Tyndall:  Faraday  as  a  Discoverer.     N.  Y.,  1873. 

8Exp'l.  Researches,  3305.     Dec.,  1854.    Jan.,  1853,  vol.  iii.,  507. 

4 "The  attractive  virtue  (of  magnetic  bodies)  is  terminated  nearly  in 
bodies  of  their  own  kind  that  are  next  them.  The  virtue  of  a  magnet  is 
contracted  by  the  interposition  of  an  iron  plate  and  is  almost  terminal 


FARADAY  ON   LINES  OF   FORCE.  443 

The  law  of  action  and  reaction  is  true  of  electric,  mag- 
netic, as  well  as  of  gravitating  attraction.  The  seat  of 
the  attracting  power  is  in  the  interval  between  the  bodies, 
whether  electric,  magnetic,  or  gravitating;  and  it  is  ex- 
erted in  every  case  along  lines  of  physical  force.  Snch 
wxas  Newton's  discovery. 

It  was  reserved  for  Faraday  to  direct  renewed  attention 
to  the  part  taken  by  the  medium,  or  as  he  called  it,  the 
dielectric,  existing  between  electrified  bodies,  and  to  point 
out  the  nature  and  properties  of  the  lines  of  force  extend- 
ing between  these  bodies  and  indicating  the  state  of  strain 
existing  in  this  intervening  space.  Amplifying  upon 
Newton,  he  inferred  the  existence  of  both  magnetic  and 
electric  lines  offeree  u  from  the  dual  nature  of  the  powers 
(electricity  and  magnetism),  and  the  necessity  at  all  times 
of  a  relation  and  dependence  between  the  polarities  of  the 
magnet  and  the  positive  and  negative  electrical  surfaces.1 

To  pass  beyond  Newton's  conception,  in  his  time,  was  to 
struggle  against  the  limits  of  the  human  intellect.  So 
Faraday,  in  his  epoch,  dashed  against  the  same  barriers, 
only  to  recoil  baffled,  but  never  disheartened.  The  effects 
of  the  physical  lines  of  force  could  be  observed  and  dealt 
with  experimentally;  but  their  intimate  nature  remained, 
and  still  remains,  unknown.  That  electricity  and  gravity 
and  magnetism  might  be  but  manifestations  of  but  one 
great  controlling  power  pervading  all  matter  was  Newton's 
conception.  For  this  power,  throughout  his  whole  life, 
Faraday  searched.  In  this  quest  he  made  all  his  great 
discoveries.2  Again  and  again,  he  exhausts  the  matchless 
powers  of  his  imagination  and  his  consummate  experi- 
mental skill  upon  the  problem,  only  to  fail.  The  genius 

at  it;  for  bodies  further  off  are  not  attracted  by  the  magnet  so  much  as  by 
the  iron  plate."  Principia,  b.  iii.,  prop,  xxiii.  Bence  Jones:  Life  and 
Letters  of  Faraday.  London,  1870,  ii.,  279. 

1  Faraday:  Observations  on  the  Magnetic  Force.     Proc.  R.  Inst.,  Jan. 
21,  1853.     Expl.  Researches,  vol.  iii.,  506. 

2  Bence  Jones:  Life  and  Letters  of  Faraday,  London,  1870,  vol.  ii,  484. 


444 


THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 


which  established  the  interconvertibility  of  electricity  and 
magnetism  could  not  identify  gravity  with  either  elec- 
tricity or  heat;  and  yet  he  felt  this  identity  to  exist, 
despite  the  negative  experimental  results.  And  so  he  left 
the  world,  even  as  Newton  had  left  it,  richer  by  vast 
accomplishments,  challenging  posterity  to  the  grandest 
achievement  to  which  the  human  intellect  can  aspire — the 
revelation  of  the  unity  of  all  natural  force.1 

"Electricity  is  often  called  wonderful,  beautiful;  but  it 
is  so  only  in  common  with  the  other  forces  of  nature, 
writes  Faraday,  among  his  lecture  notes.  "The  beauty 
of  electricity,  or  of  any  other  force,  is  not  that  the  power  is 
mysterious  and  unexpected,  but  that  it  is  under  law,  and 
that  the  taught  intellect  can  even  now  govern  it  largely. 
The  human  mind  is  placed  above  and  not  beneath  it."7 
And  the  first  mind  which  brought  it  into  subjection  to  law 
was  that  of  Isaac  Newton. 

The  medium  pervading  space,  Newton  regarded  as  an 
ether;  filling  the  universe  "adequately  without  leaving 
any  pores,  and,  by  consequence,  much  denser  than  quick- 
silver and  gold,"3  yet  offering  an  inconsiderable  resistance 
to  planetary  motion.  As  it  was  questioned  how  such  a 
medium  could  at  the  same  time  be  both  subtle  and  dense, 
he  refers  the  critic  to  the  electric  and  the  magnet.  "Let 
him  also  tell  me,"  says  Newton,  "how  an  electric  body 
can,  by  friction,  emit  an  exhalation,  so  rare  and  subtle, 
and  yet  so  potent,  as  by  its  emission  to  cause  no  sensible 
diminution  in  the  weight  of  the  electric  body,  and  so 
expanded  through  a  sphere  whose  diameter  is  above  two 
feet,  and  yet  to  be  able  to  agitate  and  carry  up  leaf  copper 
or  leaf  gold  at  the  distance  of  above  a  foot  from  the  electric 
/  body;"  and  as  for  the  magnet,  he  points  out  that  its  ema- 
nations are  capable  of  passing  through  glass  without  meet- 
ing apparent  resistance  or  losing  force. 

1  Bence  Jones:  Mrs.  Somerville  to  Faraday,  ii,  424. 

2  Ibid.:  The  Life  and  Letters  of  Faraday,  London,  1870,  vol.  ii,  404. 
'Newton:  Optics.     Qy.  22. 


NEWTON'S  ELECTRICAL  EXPERIMENTS.  445 

The  recorded  electrical  experiments  made  by  Newton 
are  few,  and  are  separated  by  long  intervals  of  time.  The 
earliest  one  was  made  in  1675, J  when  he  found  that  a  tele- 
scope glass,  a  couple  of  inches  in  diameter,  mounted  in  a 
ring  so  as  to  be  held  about  a  third  of  an  inch  above  the 
table  on  which  it  was  placed  flatwise,  would,  when  rubbed 
on  its  upper  side,  attract  bits  of  paper,  etc.,  lying  beneath 
it;  and  that  the  paper  would  vibrate  up  and  down  between 
glass  and  table  for  some  time  after  the  rubbing  ceased. 
The  Royal  Society,  to  which  this  was  communicated,  tried 
to  repeat  the  experiment  and  failed.  Newton  then  discov- 
ered that  not  only  were  better  results  secured  by  using  a 
larger  glass  disposed  barely  a  sixth,  of  an  inch  distant  from 
the  table,  but  that  the  nature  of  the  substance  with  which 
the  glass  was  rubbed  appeared  to  influence  its  excitation. 
This  last  seems  to  have  impressed  him,  as  well  it  might, 
for  it  was  an  entirely  new  observation.  He  says  that  he 
obtained  twice  as  much  excitement  of  the  glass  when  he 
rubbed  it  with  his  gown  as  he  got  on  rubbing  it  with  a 
napkin;  and  he  advises  the  Society  not  to  use  linen  or  soft 
woolen,  but  u  stuff  whose  threads  may  rake  the  surface  of 
the  glass."  The  Society,  curiously  enough,  obtained  the 
best  results  by  employing  a  u  scrubbing  brush  made  of 
short  hogs'  bristles,"  u the  haft  of  a  whalebone  knife," 
and  finally  resorted  to  merely  scraping  the  glass  with  the 
finger-nails.  This  experiment  of  Newton  appears  to  be 
the  first  suggestion  of  the  different  effects  attending  the 
rubbing  of  the  electric  with  dissimilar  bodies,  a  subject 
which  became  of  great  importance  through  the  subsequent 
brilliant  research  of  Dufay. 


The  principal  discovery  in  magnetism  resulting  from 
actual  experiment  which  belongs  to  the  early  days  of  the 
Royal  Society,  is  the  first  production  of  artificial  magnets 

1  Horsley:  Isaac!  Newtoni,  Opera.     London,  1782,  vol.  iv.,  373. 


446         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISK  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

/  by  Sellers  in  1667.  *  It  was  of  course  old  to  magnetize 
iron  needles  by  rubbing  them  wit'li  the  lodestone ;  and 
that  even  a  succession  or  chain  of  armatures  could  be 
rendered  magnetic  by  induction  from  a  single  stone,  both 
by  actual  contact  and  through  simple  location  in  the  field, 
had  been  known  for  ages.  Sellers,  however,  had  been 
rubbing  needles  on  the  stone  to  find  out  the  conditions 
under  which  they  would  become  most  strongly  mag- 
netized ;  and  he  made  up  his  mind  that  the  needle's 
strength  or  direction  did  not  depend  so  much  upon 
"fainter  or  stronger  touches  on  the  stone  nor  the  mul- 
tiplicity of  strokes"  as  upon  "the  nature  of  the  steel 
whereof  the  needle  is  made,  and  the  temper  that  is  given 
thereunto."  So  he  tried  all  sorts  of  steel,  .and  finding  the 
magnetism  apparently  permanent  in  his  needles,  easily 
made  the  succeeding  step — which  was  to  regard  the  mag- 
^Xnetized  steel  itself  in  the  same  light  as  the  lodestone ;  or, 
in  other  words,  as  an  artificial  magnet  'which  "shall  take 
up  a  piece  of  iron  of  two  ounces  weight  or  more  ;  and 
give  also  to  a  needle  the  virtue  of  conforming  to  the  mag- 
netic meridian  without  the  help  of  a  lodestone  or  anything 
else  that  has  received  virtue  therefrom." 

As  the  century  drew  to  its  close,  the  growing  commerce 
of  England  created  an  urgent  demand  for  more  definite 
knowledge  concerning  the  variation  of  the  compass.  In 
1580,  William  Burrowes  determined  the  variation  in  Lon- 
don to  be  11°  I5V  to  the  East.  Edmund  Gunter,  the  in- 
ventor of  the  scale  and  rule  which  bears  his  name,  fount 
that,  in  1622,  it  had  diminished  some  five  degrees.  Gel- 
librand,  Gunter's  successor  in  the  Chair  of  Astronomy  at 
Gresham  College,  observed  that  it  had  become  reduc< 
some  two  degrees  more.  In  1640,  Henry  Bond,  a  teach< 
of  navigation  in  London,  published  'his  Seaman's  Calen- 
dar, showing  the  progressive  nature  of  this  secular  vari; 
tion,  and  in  1668  issued  a  table  predicting,  though  in- 
accurately, its  changes  in  London  for  the  uext  forty-eight 

'Phil.  Trans.,  No.  26,  478,  1667.     Abridg.,  vol.  i.,  166. 


EDMUND   HALLEY.  447 

years.  But  who  actually  discovered  the  secular  variation 
is  not  certainly  known.  Bond  attributes  the  honor  to 
John  Mair — other  contemporary  authority  to  Gellibrand, 
who  at  least  has  the  preponderance  of  assent  in  his  favor.1 

The  whole  subject  of  compass  variation,  however,  was 
thoroughly  studied  by  Dr.  Edmund  Halley,2  a  mathema- 
tician and  astronomer  of  great  ability,  who  proposed  the 
odd  theory  to  account  for  it,  that  the  earth  has  four  mag- 
netical  poles,  two  near  each  geographical  pole,  and  that 
the  needle  is  governed  by  the  pole  to  which  it  happens  to 
be  nearest.  Unfortunately,  however,  the  observed  changes  ' 
in  the  variation  itself  over  certain  periods  of  time  inter- 
fered so  greatly  with  this  doctrine  that  it  became  evident 
to  Halley  that  the  notion  of  four  fixed  poles  would  not 
meet  the  observed  conditions.  Thereupon  he  evolved  a/- 
still  more  striking  supposition,  to  the  effect  that  the  earth 
really  consists  of  two  concentric  magnetic  shells,  each  hav- 
ing poles  differently  placed  and  not  coincident  with  the 
geographical  poles.  Then  as  the  poles  on  the  inner  shell 
"by  a  gradual  and  slow  motion  change  their  place  in  re- 
spect to  the  external,  we  may  give  a  reasonable  account 
of  the  four  magnetic  poles,  as  also  of  the  changes  in  the 
needle's  variations." 

It  is  hard  to  believe  that  the  imagination  could  exercise 
such  control  in .  the  days  of  Newton.     Yet  the  theory  at- 
tracted considerable  attention  and  had  even  great  vitality, 
for  in  1698,  thirteen  years  after  he  had  proposed  it,  Halley) 
induced  William  III.  to  appoint  him  a  captain  in  the  Navy  I 
and  give  him  command  of  a  ship,  in  order  to  make  long 
voyages  for  the  express  purpose  of  establishing  the  truth 
of  his  supposition.     He  made  two  voyages  to  various  parts 

TDr.  Wallis  (Phil.  Trans.,  1702,  No.  278,  1106),  says  that  "at  about  the 
beginning  of  the  reign  of  Charles  I.,  Gellibrand  caused  the  great  concave 
dial  in  the  Privy  Garden  at  Whitehall,  which  is  still  remaining,  to  be 
erected  in  order  to  fix  a  true  meridian  line. 

2 Phil.  Trans.,  No.  28,  p.  525,  1667;  No.  148,  p.  208,  1683;  No.  195,  p. 
563,  1692. 


448         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  Oceans,  and  came  back  not 
with  the  desired  proof  exactly,  but  with  a  useful  chart  ex- 
hibiting the  variation  of  the  needle  in  many  parts  of  the 
world,  and  the  general  law  of  its  phenomena1. 

*Brewster:  Treatise  on  Magnetism.     Edinburgh,  1836,  p.  13. 


BALANCE'S  TITLE;  PAGE. 

NOTE. — A  curious  illustration  of  the  mixture  of  old  and  new  ideas 
cerning  magnetism  which  existed  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  centui 
is  found  in  the  title  page  of  Balance's  "Traitte*  de  1'Aiman,"  publish 
in  1687,  which  is  here  reproduced  in  fac  simile. 


BALANCE'S  TREATISE.      .  449 

The  lodestone,  disposed  in  a  bowl  after  the  mode  suggested  by  Neckam 
and  Peregrinus,  and  marked  with  a  longitudinal  directing  line,  appears 
floating  in  front  of  the  vessel,  which  the  mariner,  holding  a  rudder  in 
one  hand  and  a  compass  in  the  other,  is  about  to  board.  The  goddess, 
who  appears  to  be  advising  him,  points  to  the  Great  Bear,  represented 
by  the  actual  animal  in  the  heavens,  with  the  Pole  Star  situated  at  his 
tail,  and  also  to  a  compass  and  a  dipping  needle,  while  in  her  left  hand 
she  has  a  sounding  line.  The  idea  evidently  intended  is  that  the  divinity 
is  advising  the  sailor  to  avail  himself  of  all  these  means  of  guidance. 
There  is  also  shown  on  the  left  a  suspended  armed  lodestone,  supporting 
at  one  pole  a  series  of  keys,  and  at  the  other  a  number  of  iron  plates, 
this  being  possibly  designed  to  indicate  in  some  way  the  strength  and 
consequent  trustworthiness  of  the  magnet. 


29 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

FOUR  years  after  the  foundation  of  the  English  Royal 
Society,  Colbert,  the  astute  and  far-seeing  minister  of 
Louis  XIV,  perceived  in  the  gatherings  of  philosophers 
which  were  still  held  at  the  houses  of  Thevenot  and  others, 
the  possible  nucleus  of  a  great  national  institution,  capa- 
ble of  advancing  science  and  the  industries  of  France. 
The  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences  was  therefore  duly  estab- 
lished by  royal  command  in  1666,  and  with  princely  gen- 
erosity, intended  to  be  in  marked  contrast  with  what 
English  Charles  did  not  do,  Louis  endowed  the  new 
body  with  ample  funds  for  its  future  experiments,  and 
added  pensions  and  rewards  for  deserving  members. 
Thus  equipped,  the  philosophers  had  nothing  to  do  but 
startle  the  world  with  the  magnitude  and  originality  of 
their  discoveries,  to  the  making  of  which  they  might  now 
devote  themselves  without  troubling  as  to  cost. 

At  first  they  proceeded  slowly.  The  original  members 
were  chiefly  mathematicians,  and  experiments  can  hardly 
be  said  to  have  begun  until  the  physicists  were  admitted. 
Then  they  went  at  it  with  a  will.  They  experimented  in 
concert,  with  results  fully  equal  to  such  as  might  reason- 
ably be  expected  to  follow  the  production  of  Shakespeare's 
tragedy  with  a  chorus  of  simultaneous — if  not  concordant 
— Hamlets.  There  was  no  gathering  in  a  room  and  read- 
ing one  another  asleep  with  interminable  papers,  suitable 
only  for  the  phlegmatic  plodding  English.  The  sessions 
were  held  in  the  laboratory.  Nature  should  be  made  to 
yield  up  her  secrets  by  the  combined  efforts  of  several 
brains  attacking  her  stronghold  simultaneously,  like  the 
concentrated  fire  of  a  battery.  They  needed  no  Charles  to 
suggest  subjects  and  spur  them  on.  Indeed,  when  Louis 

(45o) 


THE   ROYAL   ACADEMY  OF  SCIENCES.  451 

the  Magnificent  and  Monsieur  the  Dauphin  and  le  Grand 
Conde,  attended  by  a  gorgeous  retinue,  came  in  state  to 
visit  them,  it  was  the  king  himself  who,  after  intrepidly 
withstanding  several  chemical  lectures,  remarked  that  he 
had  "no  need  to  exhort  them  to  work,  for  they  were  doing 
it  enough  for  themselves.'' 

So  they  kept  on  experimenting  manfully,  and  quarrel- 
ling fiercely;  and  their  activity  was  prodigious.  The  re- 
sults of  these  practical  labors  appeared  principally  in  the 
shape  of  dissertations  on  abstract  mathematics,  and  they 
fill  ten  volumes  of  "Anciens  Memoirs."  Still,  as  long  as 
Colbert  lived,  the  philosophers  were  protected,  and  experi- 
mental science — as  they  viewed  it — flourished. 

But  when  Louvois  became  Minister,  matters  took  a  new 
turn.  If  the  work  of  the  Academy  thus  far  was  properly 
defined  as  experimental,  then  Louvois  soon  showed  the 
most  opposite,  and  hence  theoretical,  disposition.  When 
the  public-spirited  king  decided  to  improve  the  landscape 
at  Versailles  with  more  indispensable  cascades  and  the 
erection  of  a  much-needed  additional  mountain,  it  was 
Louvois  who  told  the  members  that  they  were  paid  to  work, 
and  set  them  at  such,  theoretical  tasks  as  aqueduct  build- 
ing, pipe  laying'  and  surveying.  He  made  La  Hire  and 
Picard  supervise  the  building  and  engineering,  Thevenot 
plan  watercourses,  and  Mariotte  attack  the  problems  of 
water  supply.  When  there  was  not  sufficient  of  this  sort 
of  theorizing  to  do  at  Versailles,  Conde  invited  them  to 
theorize  in  the  same  fashion  at  Chantilly. 

Besides,  the  haut  monde  of  Paris  had  heard  of  the  new 
fashion  at  Whitehall,  and  how  all  the  great  English 
milords  and  miladies  were  besieging  the  Royal  Society. 
Should  the  Court  of  the  Grand  Monarque  be  distanced  in 
a  matter  of  la  mode?  Immediately  were  the  mathema- 
ticians invited  to  calculate  the  chances  in  every  gambling 
game  in  vogue,  in  "quinque  nova,"  in  ule  hoca"  and 
"le  lansquenet."  Sauveur,  however,  who  too  com- 
placently evolved  a  surely  winning  system  adapted  to  ula 


452         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

barsette"  in  his  capacity  of  <(  mathematician  to  the 
Court" — found  himself  abruptly  invited  into  the  closet  of 
his  irate  sovereign,  and  given  distinctly  to  understand  that 
the  royal  prerogative  included  secrets  of  that  sort,  and 
that  kings  were  not  to  be  left  subject  to  the  run  of  luck 
ordained  to  common  people.  "What  was  the  Royal 
Academy  for,  if"  etc.,  etc.? 

Every  one  knows  how  Louis  went  to  the  wars,  dragging 
poor  Racine  from  his  theatre  to  write  history  as  he  made 
it,  and  Perrault  and  Roemer  and  Mariotte  and  Blondel, 
regardless  of  the  fact  that  some  were  mathematicians  and 
others  astronomers,  to  study  bombs  and  ballistics.  It  was 
sufficient  for  Louis  that  they  were  all  scientific  persons. 
About  the  only  philosopher  of  eminence  whom  he  let 
alone  was  Cassini,  and  that  because  the  astronomical 
observations  in  progress  were  useful  for  the  Navy.  It  is 
perhaps  not  altogether  surprising  that  in  these  circum- 
stances the  Academy,  as  one  of  its  historians  remarks, 
"lost  its  lustre  and  fell  into  a  languor."  There  it  re- 
mained until  De  Ponchartrain  reorganized  it  in  1699, 
mainly  after  the  bureaucratic  system,  so  dear  to  the  Gallic 
heart,  and  with  such  singular  astuteness  that  it  at  once 
provided  a  variety  of  new  offices  for  hangers-on  of  the 
Court.  Thus  inspired  with  new  life,  it  proceeded  to  dis- 
pute the  Newtonian  theories  for  the  next  half  century,  and 
patriotically  stuck  to  Descartes  and  his  vortices  long  after 
they  had  become  abandoned  by  Holland,  Germany  and 
St.  Petersburg.1 

All  of  this  accounts  for  the  fact  that  one  may  turn  over 
the  pages  of  the  ten  volumes  of  Anciens  Memoirs  before 
noted — yes,  and  those  of  many  of  the  later  tomes  of  the 
Histoire  de  1'Academie  Royale— and  find  little  or  nothing 
to  show  that  French  philosophy  had  ever  heard  of  the  dis- 
coveries of  Boyle  or  Hooke,  or  even  of  the  German,  Von 
Guericke.  Yet  in  that  (to  us)  dreary  waste  of  antiquated 
natural  history,  anatomy  and  mathematics,  there  may  be 

'Maury:  L'Aucienne  Academic  des  Sciences.     Paris,  1864. 


PICARD' s  LUMINOUS  BAROMETER.  453 

found  a  short  note,  barely  filling  a  printed  page,  which 
contains  the  suggestion  which  was  the  original  cause 
which  started  the  whole  scientific  world  to  puzzling  over 
the  wonders  of  the  electric  light. 


The  terrestrial  measurements  which  enabled  Newton  to 
correct  his  calculations  concerning  the  moon  and  to  verify 
his  belief  in  the  effect  of  the  earth's  gravity  thereon,  were 
made  by  Jean  Picard,  a  priest  and  an  astronomer  of  re- 
markable ability.  It  was  Picard  who  informed  the  Royal 
Academy  of  a  curious  effect  which  he  had  observed  in  the 
barometer  which  he  employed  in  the  Paris  Observatory. 
The  instrument  of  that  time  was  merely  a  glass  tube 
closed  above,  open  below,  exhausted  of  air  and  inserted, 
open  end  downwards,  in  a  cup  of  mercury:  the  metal,  of 
course,  rising  in  the  tube  under  the  atmospheric  pressure. 
Picard  observed  that  when  the  instrument  itself  was 
moved  so  as  to  cause  the  mercury  to  vibrate  in  the  tube,  a 
light  appeared  in  the  empty  portion  of  the  latter,  clearly 
visible  in  the  dark,  It  is  said  that  he  first  saw  it  while 
carrying  the  apparatus  in  his  hands  from  one  part  of  the 
observatory  to  another  after  nightfall.  At  all  events,  there 
was  no  mistaking  the  luminosity — which  was  a  sort  of 
broken  glow  above  the  quicksilver,  and  which  appeared 
best  when  the  mercury  descended  quickly.  The  note, 
which  bears  the  date  of  ^67^  adds  that  efforts  had  been 
made  (combined  experiments,  probably)  to  find  other 
barometers  which  would  behave  similarly,  but  not  one 
had  been  encountered;  that  it  had  been  resolved  to  ex- 
amine the  matter  in  every  possible  way,  and  that  the 
future  discoveries  would  be  set  forth  in  detail.1  The 
same  cheerful  confidence  which  the  king  had  shown  con- 
cerning coming  developments  in  general,  is  here  reflected 
with  regard  to  what  was  going  to  be  found  out  about  this 
singular  light. 

'Mem.  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des  Sciences.     Paris,  1730,  vol.  x.,  p.  556. 


454         TH^  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

But  the  years  went  by,  and  if  the  discoveries  were  made 
nobody  mentioned  them,  and  the  strange  light  which 
Picard  had  seen  in  the  barometer  was  as  little  remembered 
as  the  glow  which  Guericke  had  obtained  years  before 
from  his  sulphur  ball. 

There  had  been  known,  since  the  beginning  of  the 
century,  a  mineral,  sometimes  termed  the  Bologna  stone, 
sometimes  the  Bononian  stone,  from  the  place  of  its  dis- 
covery, which  would  become  luminous  in  the  dark.1  It  had 
been  accidentally  found  by  one  Casciorolus,  a  shoemaker 
who  had  deserted  his  trade  for  alchemy,  and  who  gave  it 
the  name  of  "lapis  Solaris,"  because,  from  its  illuminating 
properties,  he  conceived  it  especially  suitable  for  the  trans- 
mutation of  silver  into  gold — the  alchemical  sol.  As  the 
Italian  chemists  seem  to  have  agreed  in  this  opinion,  the 
stone  soon  became  in  great  demand  and  brought  fabulous 
prices,  which  were  maintained  despite  the  claim  of  Potier, 
a  French  chemist,  that  he  could  produce  it  artificially.  In 
1666,  the  English  Royal  Society  records  the  death  of  a 
clergyman  who  was  said  to  have  exclusively  possessed  the 
art,  without  communicating  it  to  any  one. 

The  value  placed  upon  the  substance — which  was 
barium  sulphide,  frequently  used  now  as  a  basis  for  the 
so-called  luminous  paint — incited  the  chemists  to  endeavor 
to  imitate  it;  with  the  result  that,  at  about  the  time  of 
Picard's  observation  of  the  light  in  his  barometer,  Brand, 
of  Germany,  produced  a  light-giving  substance  from 
animal  excretions,  and  sold  the  secret  of  its  manufacture 
to  Krafft.  Krafft  named  it  "phosphorus"  and  took  it  to 
England,  where  it  was  exhibited  to  the  king,  and,  as  we 
nave  already  seen,  it  constituted  one  of  the  most  interest- 
ing of  the  Gresham  College  curiosities.  In  Germany, 
Hunkel,  who  learned  of  it  from  Krafft,  published,  in  1678, 
a  pamphlet  describing  it,  and  the  interest  excited  in  Eng- 

^eckmann:  A  History  of  Inv'ns  and  Discoveries.  3d  ed.,  1817,  vol. 
iv.,  419.  Roscoe  and  Schorlemmer:  A  Treatise  on  Chemistry.  N.  Y., 
1883,  vol.  i.,  457. 


THE   MERCURIAL   PHOSPHORUS.  455 

land  spread  rapidly  over  the  continent.  It  was  termed 
"phosphorus  mirabilis,"  "phosphorus  igneus,"  and  some- 
times "light  magnet" — although  the  last  name  is  often 
also  applied  to  the  Bologna  stone. 

The  effect  of  this  discovery  was  to  draw  especial  atten- 
tion to  all  substances  which  appeared  to  be  naturally 
luminous,  and  decaying  fish,  sea-water  and  glow-worms, 
sparks  produced  by  abrasion,  the  heating  of  metals  to  red- 
ness by  friction  or  impact,  were  all  studied  as  allied  effects, 
because  all  of  them  gave  light.  Boyle  made  the  subject 
one  of  special  research;  and  in  aid  thereof  Clayton  sent 
him  huge  fire-flies  from  Virginia,  and  told  him  about  the 
sparks  which  flashed  from  Madam  SewalPs  petticoats. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  frequently  the  accidental 
acquirement  of  a  book  precedes  the  making  of  a  train  of 
discoveries.  A  little  tract  on  barometers,  which  happened 
to  have  in  it  an  account  of  Picard's  observation,  fell  into 
the  hands  of  John  Bernouilli,  who  was  then  professor  of 
mathematics  at  Groningen.1  Bernouilli  made  up  his 
mind  that  here  was  a  way  of  producing  light  naturally, 
without  the  aid  of  any  chemical  phosphorus  at  all;  but  as 
the  word  "phosphorus"  was  then  applied  to  any  substance 
which  became  luminous  without  combustion,  he  called 
Picard's  phenomenon  the  "mercurial  phosphorus,"  and, 
in  June,  1700,  gives  the  results  of  his  own  experiments  on 
the  subject  in  a  letter  to  Varignon,  then  a  member  of  the 
French  Academy.  The  ensuing  consequences  are  a  warn- 
ing against  hasty  deductions,  and  besides  exhibit  the  wis- 
dom of  the  profound  remark  of  Mr.  Diedrich  Knicker- 
bocker, that  "it  is  a  mortifying  circumstance  which  greatly 
perplexes  many  a  painstaking  philosopher  that  nature 
often  refuses  to  second  his  most  profound  and  elaborate 

1  See  Martin  and  Chambers:  The  Phil.  Histy.  and  Memoirs  of  the  R. 
Acad.  of  Sci.,  Paris.  London,  1742. 

Histoire  de  1'Acad.  R.  des  Sci.,  from  1666  to  1699.     Paris,  1733. 

Histoire  de  1'Acad.  R.  des  Sci.,  for  years  1700  to  1707.  Paris,  1701  to 
1708.  With  accompanying  memoirs.  Bernouilli's  letters  are  here  pub- 
lished in  full. 


456         THE)  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

efforts;  so  that,  after  having  invented  one  of  the  most  in- 
genious and  natural  theories  imaginable,  she  will  have  the 
perversity  to  act  directly  in  the  teeth  of  his  system,  and 
flatly  contradict  his  most  favorite  positions."1 

Bernouilli  gave  not  only  an  elaborate  explanation  of 
the  effect  in  accordance  with  the  Cartesian  theory,  by  as- 
suming different  matters  respectively  entering  the  vacuum 
through  the  glass  from  without  and  arising  from  the  mer- 
cury within  and  then  clashing  together  (in  which  he  was 
quite  safe,  seeing  that  he  was  comimmicating  with  the 
Cartesian  stronghold);  but  also  laid  down  numerous  pre- 
cautions, which  he  said  it  was  indispensable  to  observe  in 
order  to  reproduce  the  effect.  This  last  rather  surprised 
the  Frenchmen,  because  Cassini  for  one  had  been  getting 
light  from  his  barometer  for  the  last  six  years  without 
troubling  himself  with  any  precautions  at  all.  And 
Picard's  old  instrument  had  been  taken  to  pieces  by  De  la 
Hire  and  set  up  over  again,  and  sometimes  it  had  given 
light  and  sometimes  refused  to  do  it,  from  apparent  sheer 
wilfulness.  In  fact  Cassini  and  De  la  Hire  had  compared 
notes,  and  even  thought  they  found  differences  in  the  sort 
of  light  which  their  respective  barometers  yielded.  How- 
ever, it  was  thought  best  to  follow  Bernouilli' s  directions, 
with  the  unexpected  sequel  that  the  apparatus  so  made 
refused  to  glow  at  all — while  more  people  began  to  pro- 
duce instruments  which  behaved  beautifully. 

Bernouilli,  on  being  informed,  calmly  modified  his 
requirements,  insisting,  however,  upon  absolutely  pure 
mercury  and  total  exclusion  of  air.  But  old  barometers 
obviously  containing  air  bubbles  still  persisted  in  glowing. 
Then  Bernouilli  himself  discovered  that  the  vacuum  was 
not  needed,  and  that  mercury  shaken  in  an  ordinary  vial 
shone  finely.  The  French  Academy  seems  to  have  been 
unable  to  reproduce  this,  and  Bernouilli  investigated  the 
matter  far  enough  to  reach  firm  ground.  He  found  that 
so  long  as  the  mercury  was  fairly  pure  he  could  get  lumi- 

1  Irving:  Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York. 


FRANCIS  HAUKSBEE.  457 

nosity  with  certainty  in  the  vial;  and  stranger  still,  that 
when  the  vial  contained  air,  the  light  appeared  like  sparks 
"which  arise  simultaneously  and  perish  almost  at  the 
same  time;"  but  when  the  vial  was  exhausted  of  air  "the 
light  is  like  a  continuous  flame  which  lasts  incessantly 
while  the  quicksilver  is  in  agitation. "  The  least  hu- 
midity, even  the  perspiration  of  the  hand,  would  put  the 
light  out. 

Bernouilli's  discovery  was  hailed  in  Germany  with  en- 
thusiasm. It  was  supposed  that  he  had  invented  a  new 
mode  of  mechanical  illumination  which  might  perhaps 
render  candles  and  lamps  things  of  the  past.  And  he 
probably  so  believed  himself,  for  he  seems  then  to  have 
had  no  conception  of  the  real  cause  of  the  glow. 

Before  long  the  news  reached  the  Royal  Society. 
Hooke  was  then  incapacitated  for  arduous  work  by  both 
age  and  illness,  and  Francis  Hauksbee,1  who  held  the  office 
of  curator  of  experiments,  undertook  to  investigate  the 
matter.  Little  is  known  concerning  Hauksbee  further 
than  that  he  had  already  achieved  reputation  as  an  experi- 
mentalist. His  first  recorded  researches  bear  date  1705, 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  a  persistent  student  until  he 
died,  some  seven  years  later.  That  he  was  a  man  of  un- 
usual genius  in  original  research  is  abundantly  shown. 
His  mind  was^  philosophical,  and  but  little  influenced  by 
the  prevalent  hypotheses  which  to  many  seemed  axiomatic. 
To  him  is  due  not  merely  the  recognition  of  the  effect  of 
Newton's  reduction  of  electric  phenomena  under  general 
law,  but  the  almost  instant  perception  that  the  next  log- 
ical step  was  the  seeking  of  "the  Nature  and  Laws  of 
Electrical  Attractions"  which  uhave  not  yet  been  much 
considered  by  any."  He  invented  a  form  of  air-pump  that 
is  still  known  by  his  name;  but  his  fame  ought  to  rest, 
and  deservedly,  upon  his  extraordinary  electrical  experi- 
ments now  to  be  recounted. 


Hauksbee:  Physico  Mechanical  Experiments  on  Various  Subjects. 
London,  1709.  See  also  his  communications  to  the  Royal  Society  in 
years  1705  to  1712  inclusive. 


458 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 


His  starting-point  is  the  strange  light  seen  in  the  mer- 
curial barometer,  the  cause  of  which  it  is  his  task  to  dis- 
cover. Like  Bernouilli,  he  calls  it  the  "mercurial  phos- 
phorus." In  common  with  others,  he  believes  the  radi- 
ance to  be  due  to  some  quality  of  the  mercury,  brought 
into  action  by  the  peculiar  conditions  of  vacuum,  or  agita- 
tion, or  both.  The  Cartesian  theory  had  few  adherents 
among  the  English  philosophers  of  the  time,  and  certainly 
Hauksbee  was  not  among  them. 

From  the  moment  he  begins  his  experiments  (1705)  the 
results  astonish  him.  It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that,  at 
the  outset,  he  had  no  suspicion  that  the  mercury  light  had 
anything  to  do  with  electricity.  As  I  have  already  stated, 
these  odd  luminosities,  which  did  not  appear  to  be  the 
immediate  consequence  of  actual  burning,  were  all  grouped 
together,  and  the  effort  was  often  made  to  refer  them  to 
some  common  origin.  Even  Newton1  held  this  belief. 
"Do  not  all  bodies,"  he  asks,  "which  abound  with  terres- 
trial parts,  and  especially  with  sulphurous  ones,  emit  light 
as  often  as  those  parts  are  sufficiently  agitated;  whether 
that  agitation  be  made  by  heat,  or  by  friction,  or  percus- 
sion, or  putrefaction,  or  by  any  vital  motion  on  any  other 
cause?  As,  for  instance,  sea-water  in  a  raging  storm; 
quicksilver  agitated  in  vacuo;  the  back  of  a  cat  or  neck 
of  a  horse,  obliquely  struck  or  rubbed,  in  a  dark  place; 
wood,  flesh  and  fish,  while  they  putrefy;  vapors  arising 
from  putrefied  waters,  usually  called  Ignes  Fatui;  stacking 
of  moist  hay  or  corn  growing  hot  by  fermentation;  glow- 
worms and  the  eyes  of  some  animals  by  vital  motions;  the 
vulgar  phosphorus,  agitated  by  the  attrition  of  any  body  or 
by  the  particles  of  the  air;  amber  and  some  diamonds,  by 
striking,  or  pressing,  or  rubbing  them;  scrapings  of  steel, 
struck  off  with  a  flint;  iron  hammered  very  nimbly  till  it 
become  so  hot  as  to  kindle  sulphur  thrown  upon  it."  Ob- 
viously there  was  no  more  reason  why  Hauksbee,  in  the 
beginning,  should  have  supposed  the  barometer  light  to  be 

1  Optics.    Q.  8. 


HAUKSBEE'S  LUMINOUS  FOUNTAIN. 


459 


kindred  to  the  amber  light  or  cat's-back  light,  than  to  the 
light  due  to  the  striking  of  flint  and  steel.  In  fact,  as  will 
be  apparent  further  on,  his  impressions  evidently  were  that 
the  last-named  alliance  was  the  most  probable. 

The  question  which  had  been  most  debated  bore  upon 
the  need  of  a  vacuum  existing  in  the  vessel  which  con- 
tained the  mercury,  and  to  that  he  first  directs  attention. 
He  proves  almost  immediately  that,  by  allowing  air  to 
rush  through  quicksilver  in  an  ex- 
hausted receiver,  he  can  convert 
the  liquid  metal  into  a  jet  dash- 
ing in  drops  in  every  direction 
against  the  sides  of  the  vessel,  and 
looking,  as  he  says,  ulike  one 
Great  Flaming  Masse."  Then  he 
permits  mercury  to  flow  downward 
into  an  exhausted  receiver  so  as 
to  strike  a  rounded  glass  surface 
therein  and  so  become  spread.  A 
shower  of  fire  appears;  luminous, 
however,  only  (his  observation  is 
very  quick)  "where  it  strikes  the 
glass  in  its  fall."  Now  he  lets  in 
three  pounds  of  mercury  at  once 
in  a  cascade,  and  then  uthe  light 
darted  thick  from  the  crown  of  the 
included  Glass  like  Flashes  of 
Lightning." 

They  were  flashes  of  lightning, 

and  this  was  the  first  suggestion  of  that  great  identity  by 
one  who  was  building  far  better  than  he  ever  knew. 

The  behavior  of  the  light  is  curious.  When  the  mer- 
cury falls  into  a  vacuum,  there  is  a  gentle,  uniform  glow; 
but  when  it  pours  into  air,  the  sparks  dance  between 
the  glistening  drops.  What  are  the  sparks?  Certainly, 

1  Reproduced  in  fac  simile  from  s'Gravesande's  Elements  of  Natural 
Philosophy.  4th  ed.  1731. 


HAUKSBEE'S    LUMINOUS 
MERCURIAL  FOUNTAIN.1 


460         THE)  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

concludes  Hauksbee,  whose  fascination  with  his  work 
shows  itself  now  in  every  line  of  his  description,  that 
sort  of  light  does  not  resemble  the  little  bluish  radiance  in 
the  barometer !  What  is  it? 

He  undertakes  to  find  out  by  noting  the  conditions  un- 
der which  he  can  produce  a  similar  light.  He  arranges  a 
piece  of  amber  so  that  he  can  revolve  it  swiftly  in  contact 
with  a  pad  of  woolen  cloth  within  his  exhausted  glass 
vessel.  The  light  appears;  he  can  see  it  at  a  distance  of 
three  or  four  feet.  It  is  brighter  as  the  vacuum  increases; 
but  then  the  amber  begins  to  burn  and  the  woolen  scorches. 
Did  the  heat  so  produced  make  the  light? 

Try  flint  and  steel,  and  see,  his  active  brain  answers. 
A  steel  ring  is  made  to  revolve  in  the  glass  vessel  and  a 
bit  of  flint  is  pressed  against  it.  Before  the  air  is  ex- 
hausted the  sparks  fly  in  showers,  but  as  the  air-pump 
draws  out  the  reluctant  atmosphere  they  fade  and  finally 
disappear,  and  only  a  just  perceptible  luminous  ring  where 
the  stone  touches  the  whirling  metal  at  last  remains.  No; 
it  is  not  the  flint  and  steel  light  which  needs  the  air — this 
unearthly  glow,  which  thrives  best  when  the  air  is  gone. 

Singular,  that  this  light,  so  like  the  lightning,  should 
have  been  produced  in  an  exhausted  glass  bulb,  and 
almost  two  hundred  years  ago ! 

Hauksbee  now  determines  that  the  mercury  light  on  the 
whole  is  more  like  the  amber  glow  than  like  the  corusca- 
tions flying  from  the  steel;  but  as  amber  is  resinous  and 
inflammable  he  substitutes  glass  as  the  material  to  be 
rubbed,  and  makes  a  new  discovery.  The  light  in  the  ex- 
hausted receiver  becomes  purple;  but,  as  the  air  is  let  into 
the  vessel,  it  fades,  turns  reddish,  and  then  gray — very 
feeble  when  the  vessel  is  full  of  aii.  It  is  odd  how  the 
color  changes  as  more  or  less  air  is  admitted;  odder  still 
that  there  should  be  flashes  and  no  longer  a  glow  when  the 
woolen  rubber  is  soaked  with  a  saltpeter  solution.  He 
rubs  glass  on  glass,  glass  on  oyster  shells,  oyster  shells  on 
woolen,  sometimes  in  vacuo,  sometimes  in  air;  puzzling 


HAUKSBEE'S  ELECTRIC  MACHINE.  461 

continually  over  the  varied  results,  for  it  is  difficult  to  tell 
when  the  light  comes  from  the  high  heating  of  these  sub- 
stances, due  to  friction,  and  when  not. 

At  last  a  novel  idea  strikes  him.  Why  rub  glass  in  a 
glass  vessel  exhausted  of  air  ?  Why  not  rub  the  exhausted 
glass  vessel  itself?  At  once  he  mounts  a  glass  globe  in  a 


HAUKSBEE'S  ELECTRIC  MACHINE. 


=ort  of  lathe,  sets  it  whirling,  and  holds  his  hand  to  the 
surface.  The  results,  in  point  of  brilliancy,  overtop  those 
of  all  predecessors. 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  fac  simile  from  Hauksbee's  "  Physico-Mechan- 
ical  Experiments  on  various  subjects  containing  An  Account  of  several 
Surprizing  Phenomena  touching  Light  and  Electricity."  London:  1709. 
The  wavy  lines  on  the  globe  are  evidently  intended  to  represent  the  play 
of  light  therein. 


462          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  light,  still  purple,  is  uso  great  that  large  print, 
without  much  difficulty,  could  be  read  by  it,  and  at  the 
same  time  the  room,  which  was  large  and  wide,  became 
sensibly  enlightened,  and  the  wall  was  visible  at  the  re- 
motest distance,  which  was  at  least  ten  feet."  As  he  lets 
air  into  the  globe  the  radiance  diminishes;  but  something 
of  the  meaning  of  what  he  sees  begins  to  dawn  upon  him. 
He  notices  a  similarity  between  the  mercury  light  and  this 
glow  of  the  glass — the  difference  is  as  great  '  *  between  the 
light  in  the  globe  exhausted  and  the  light  produced  when 
the  globe  was  empty  of  air,  as  between  the  lights  produced 
from  mercury  when  the  experiment  was  made  in  vacuo 
and  in  the  open  air." 

It  was  fortunate  for  Hauksbee  that  he  was  experiment- 
ing in  the  days  of  good  Queen  Anne,  and  showing  all  these 
marvelous  things  to  the  Royal  Society,  which  had  done 
more  to  overthrow  superstition  and  especially  belief  in 
witchcraft  and  sorcery  in  England  than  perhaps  any  other 
of  the  great  civilizing  forces.  Conceive  of  Scotch  James 
hearing  with  complacency  of  a  man  who  makes  spots  of 
light  appear  under  his  fingers  as  he  touches  a  glass  bottle; 
who  says,  uNay,  while  my  hand  continued  upon  the 
glass — the  glass  being  in  motion — if  any  person  approached 
his  fingers  toward  any  part  of  it  in  the  same  horizontal 
plane  with  my  hand,  a  light  would  be  seen  to  stick  to  'em  at 
the  distance  of  about  an  inch  or  thereabouts  without  their 
touching  the  glass  at  all."  A  light,  a  corpse-light,  cling- 
ing to  the  very  hands  of  the  foolhardy  wretch  who  ven- 
tured near  the  infernal  apparatus  of  this  prince  of  wizards, 
might  well  be  the  royal  conclusion,  followed  by  a  dispo- 
sition of  Mr.  Hauksbee  which  would  have  left  the  world 
ignorant  that  he  had  ever  thus  exhibited  the  electrification 
of  the  human  body  by  induction  from  his  glass  globe. 

But,  as  I  have  said,  these  were  the  days  of  Queen  Anne, 
when  Marlborough  was  returning  in  triumph  from  Ramil- 
lies,  and  England  and  Scotland  were  uniting,  and  other 
great  political  events  happening,  all  proving  how  greatly 


HAUKSBEE   AND   HIS  TIMES.  463 

the  times  had  changed;  and  as  to  this  last  it  is  significant 
that  Hauksbee's  treatise  and  the  Tatler  newspaper — the 
first  real  Anglo-Saxon  newspaper  which  did  not  get  its 
home  news  by  way  of  the  Dutch — appeared  in  the  same 
year.  One  not  unnaturally  follows  such  a  chronicle  of 
physical  discovery  as  this,  tracing  the  struggles  of  men  to 
wrest  from  unwilling  nature  her  secrets,  often  forgetting 
that  the  achievements  or  the  failures  are  correlated  to  other 
and  widely  different  events  peculiar  to  especial  ages  and 
times.  True,  such  research  merely  reveals  natural  laws 
which  are  the  same  yesterday,  to-day  and  forever;  and 
whether  this  is  done  a  hundred  years  earlier  or  later,  or 
brings  to  the  discoverer  fame  or  a  fagot,  cannot  alter 
the  ultimate  supremacy  of  the  truth.  Yet  there  is  a  great 
world  living  and  moving  outside  the  walls  of  the  labora- 
tory and  influencing  in  his  every  act  the  man  that  is  within 
it,  sometimes  to  encourage,  oftener  to  dishearten.  It  has 
had  a  great  deal  to  do  with  the  rise  of  electrical  knowledge, 
mainly  in  the  way  of  prevention;  but  never  before  have  its 
ignorance  and  credulity  and  superstition  strewn  fewer  ob- 
stacles in  the  pathway.  Mr.  Hauksbee's  hands  may  glow 
and  his  fingers  may  sparkle  with  the  ineffectual  fires  of  the 
excited  glass,  without  fear  of  a  change  to  the  flames  of 
Smithfield.  Perhaps  his  future  associate  in  the  Royal  So- 
ciety, the  Reverend  Cotton  Mather,  resident  in  New  Eng- 
land, might  feel  moved  to  offer  him  the  joys  of  martyrdom 
were  his  lights  flashing  in  Boston  instead  of  in  London; 
but  in  Old  England,  the  England  of  Steele  and  Addison 
and  Swift — of  Isaac  Bickerstaffe  and  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley 
and  Gulliver — even  Mr.  Hauksbee's  neck-cloth  may  become 
as  "fiery"  as  it  likes  without  provoking  the  grewsome  sum- 
mons of  the  witch-finder.  Besides,  his  "  Physico-Mechan- 
ical  Experiments,"  and  the  first  volume  of  Mr.  Addison's 
Spectator  own  the  same  noble  patron,  John,  Lord  Somers, 
sometime  President  of  the  Royal  Society  and  Lord  Chan- 
cellor of  England;  a  good  and  stalwart  bulwark  at  home, 
even  if  across  the  Atlantic,  in  Cotton  Mather's  land,  that 


464         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

growing  settlement,  New  York,  is  eyeing  him  suspiciously 
as  an  accomplice  of  her  most  picturesque  pirate,  Captain 
Kidd. 

Mr.  Hauksbee,  however,  bending  over  his  globe,  is 
uttering  new,  and  even  more  fervid  expressions  of  amaze- 
ment and  admiration.  His  lights  are  becoming  fantastic, 
branching  here  and  there,  dashing  against  the  crystal 
walls,  while  his  notions  are  being  turned  so  completely 
around,  that  he  is  beginning  to  believe  that  this  illumina- 
tion and  that  given  by  the  mercury  are,  after  all,  very  much 
alike.  Certainly  both  seem  to  come  from  glass,  and,  as  he 
says,  "one  might  conjecture  with  some  probability  that  the 


HAUKSBEE' S   ELECTRIC  GLOW.1 

light  produced  proceeds  from  some  quality  in  the  glass 
(upon  such  as  friction  or  motion  given  it),  and  not  from 
the  mercury,  upon  any  other  account  than  only  as  does  a 
proper  body,  which  by  beating  or  rubbing  on  the  glass, 
produces  the  light." 

Observe  how  easy  it  is  after  the  event  to  foresee  conclu- 

1  Reproduced  in  fac  simile  from  s'Gravesande's  Elements  of  Natural 
Philosophy,  4th  ed.,  1731.  There  is  no  picture  of  the  electric  glow  given 
in  either  of  the  two  editions  of  Hauksbee's  treatise.  s'Gravesande's  work 
from  which  Dr.  Desaguiliers  made  the  translation  above  noted,  appears 
to  have  been  published  not  long  after  Hauksbee's  second  edition,  so  that 
the  present  illustration  is  a  fairly  near  contemporary  representation  of 
the  phenomenon. 


HAUKSBEE'S  EXPERIMENTS.  465 

sions.  Hauksbee  has  found  that  the  rubbed  glass  glows, 
mercury  rubs  glass,  glass  is  an  electric  excited  by  rubbing; 
ergo,  says  the  Keen  Intelligence,  glancing  at  this  page 
and  bounding  unerringly  to  the  inevitable  sequel,  he  has 
discovered  the  mercurial  light  to  be  electric.  That,  how- 
ever, is  what  the  Keen  Intelligence  would  have  done  in 
Hauksbee's  place;  but  it  should  be  remembered  that  minds 
differ,  and  Hauksbee's  was  not  of  the  superior  nineteenth 
century,  but  of  the  inferior  eighteenth  century  variety; 
and  hence,  unable  as  yet,  despite  all  that  has  happened, 
to  harbor  the  notion  that  electricity  has  anything  to  do 
with  the  matter  at  all.  So  we  must  follow  him  a  little 
further  in  his  gropings. 

Serious  physical  discoveries,  untinged  by  any  trace  of 
levity,  have  a  way  of  getting  into  that  stage  in  which 
Charles  Lamb  records  the  cooking  of  roast  pig  to  have 
long  remained  before  the  important  fact  was  revealed  that 
it  was  not  necessary  to  burn  down  a  whole  house  in  order 
to  roast  that  succulent  animal. 

The  imagination  always  recoils  from  abstractions,  and 
insensibly  links  an  idea  with  the  particular  thing  in  which 
it  happens  first  to-  be  embodied,  or  through  which  it  first 
came  to  be  known.  Consequently  when  Hauksbee  desires  to 
test  his  explanation  of  the  light  as  due  to  the  friction  of 
mercury  on  glass,  he  goes  back  to  the  barometer,  although 
that  instrument,  as  a  barometer,  had  nothing  to  do  with 
the  effect;  just  as  people  all  over  Europe,  for  a  considerable 
time,  depopulated  the  frog  ponds,  under  the  notion  that 
Galvani's  discovery  could  not  be  made  manifest  except 
through  the  actual  frogs'  legs.  He  rubs  the  empty  tube 
above  the  mercury  with  his  fingers,  and  then  again  he  sees 
the  light,  which  follows  his  fingers  without  any  motion  of 
the  quicksilver  at  all.  That  brings  him  to  Newton's  ex- 
periment— the  attraction  of  the  bits  of  leaf  brass  and  paper 
by  rubbed  glass — although  he  does  not  recognize  it  as  New- 
ton's, because  he  has  reached  it  by  his  own  independent 
reasoning,  and,  in  fact,  has  re-invented  it.  Then  he  be- 
30 


466         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

gins  to  forge  the  link  between   the  rubbed  glass  giving 
light  and  the  rubbed  glass  attracting  scraps  of  paper,  and 
/     suspects  that  both  phenomena  are  electrical. 

But  now  new  questions  crowd  upon  him.  The  light 
appears  and  the  attraction  is  exercised  outside  of  the  glass. 
The  supposed  emanations  producing  both  can  be  cut  off 
by  moist  air  or  even  by  fine  muslin,  not  because  of  any  in- 
herent property  in  either  air  or  cloth,  but — and  here  he  uses 
a  well-known  word  in  modern  electrical  language — because 
there  is  an  interposition  of  something-  which  acts  as  a  u  re- 
sistance. " 

The  belief  that  all  these  effects  are  governed  by  law  is 
uppermost  in  his  mind,  and  so  he  says  that,  "  the  effluvia, 
how  subtle  soever  they  can  be  imagined  to  be,  are  yet  body 
and  matter,  and  must  therefore  be  liable  to  the  common 
laws  of  bodies,  which  is  to  be  resisted  in  some  proportion  to 
the  strength  and  density  of  the  medium. ' '  At  once  he  seeks 
to  ufind  in  what  manner  such  a  motion  is  propagated  and 
in  what  figure  or  sort  of  track  it  went  along."  A  chance 
observation  spurs  him  on.  He  has  held  the  rubbed  tube 
to  his  face  and  felt,  with  amazement,  the  electric  wind 
from  the  dense  charge  at  its  extremity,  making  "very 
i/  nearly  such  sort  of  strokes  upon  the  skin  as  a  number  of 
fine  limber  hairs  pushing  against  it  might  be  supposed  to 
do." 

As  he  rubs  his  tube,  the  light  breaks  forth  and  crackles 
like  green  leaves  in  the  fire.  The  substitution  of  a  solid 
glass  rod  for  the  tube,  makes  little  difference  in  the  effect. 
Rubbing  the  tube  by  hand  is  awkward,  so  he  arranges  a 
glass  cylinder  in  his  lathe  and  revolves  it,  noticing  now 
not  only  the  purple  light,  but  again  the  sensation  of  a  cur- 
rent or  wind  striking  his  finger  held  near  uwith  some 
force,  being  easily  felt  by  a  kind  of  gentle  pressure,  though 
the  moving  body  was  not  touched  with  it  by  near  half  an 
inch."  The  object  lesson  is  plain.  If  whatever  that  is 
which  seems  to  come  from  the  glass  is  so  powerful  that  it 
can  be  felt,  it  ought  to  be  able  to  influence  bodies  which 


ELECTRIC  IJNES  OF  FORCE.  467 

are  placed  in  it — perhaps  just  as  the  wind  moves  the 
weather-cock,  or  causes  a  flag  to  stand  out  in  its  current. 
He  places  a  semicircle  of  wire  having  a  number  of  woolen 
threads  hanging  from  it,  transversely  over  his  glass  cylin- 
der. The  threads  at  first  are  perpendicular.  Then  as  the 
cylinder  is  rotated,  no  pressure  of  the  hand  being  exerted 
upon  it,  the  threads  are  blown  aside  all  in  one  direction 
by  the  wind  or  eddy  caused  by  the  revolving  glass;  but, 
as  soon  as  he  places  his  hand  on  the  cylinder  to  rub  it,  the 
threads  immediately  straighten,  and  every  one  of  them 
assumes  a  radial  position  pointing  to  the  axis  of  the  cylin- 
der, while  the  light  and  the  cracklings  are  simultaneously 
seen  and  heard.  He  changes  the  position  of  the  threads, 
sometimes  fastening  the  semicircle  of  wire  below  the 
cylinder,  and  then  the  threads  are  compelled  to  stand  up 
and  point  to  the  axis;  and  sometimes  he  places  the  cylin- 
der vertically  with  the  semicircle  horizontal,  and  then  the 
threads  stand  out  horizontally,  thus  proving  that  the  force 
in  the  space  about  the  cylinder  is  strong  enough  to  direct 
the  threads  in  straight  lines  despite  the  tendency  of  the  air 
to  swing  them  aside.  The  extension  of  the  threads  cer- 
tainly depends  "upon  the  action  of  some  matter  whose 
direction  is  in  straight  lines  toward  the  glass.' '  There 
was  a  recognition,  clearly  and  plainly,  of  the  lines  of  elec- 
tric force — for  he  says  that  when  a  body  is  interposed  be- 
tween the  threads  and  the  glass  "  they  lose  their  regular  \ 
extension  and  hang  as  their  own  weight  causes  them." 

Now  follows  a  discovery  of  capital  importance,  but 
which  to  Hauksbee  is  a  complete  puzzle.  He  disposes 
two  glass  globes  within  an  inch  of  each  other,  but  mounted 
in  separate  lathes  so  that  they  can  be  rotated  independ- 
ently. He  exhausts  the  air  in  one  and  applies  his  hand 
to  the  unexhausted  globe.  Then  he  sees  the  light  appear, 
not  only  on  the  globe  that  is  rubbed,  but  on  the  exhausted 
globe  which  is  not  rubbed.  But  he  soon  finds  that  motion 
of  both  globes  is  not  necessary,  and  that  he  has  only  to 
bring  near  to  the  excited  globe  a  vacuum  tube  to  see  the 


468         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

light  at  once  flash  therein.  This  he  supposes  to  be  due  to 
the  frictional  action  of  the  effluvia  emanating  from  the 
rubbed  electric,  but  in  fact  it  was  a  demonstration  of 
electric  induction. 

After  many  more  experiments — variations  of  one  kind 
and  another — he  is  confirmed  in  his  belief  of  the  effects 
happening  in  the  field  of  force,  and  states  it  in  the  follow- 
ing explicit  terms:  It  is  (the  italics  are  his  own) — 

"Not  only  a  Communication,  but  a  Continuity  of  the 
Matter  which  occasions  the  Motion  of  the  Threads.  The 
Progress  of  it  seems  to  be  in  a  straight  and  direct  track ; 
in  which  the  Matter  is  push'd  by  the  shortest  Course  from 
the  Approached  Body  to  the  Threads  that  are  shaken  by  it. 
And  if  the  Threads  are  mov'd  by  influence  of  any  Matter 
emitted  from  the  Glass,  it  appears  to  be  impossible  to  ex- 
plain how  they  should  be  so,  and  at  sitch  distances,  with- 
out a  Continuity,  So  that  the  Case  seems  to  be  thus: 
That  the  Effluvia  pass  along,  as  it  were,  in  so  many  Phys- 
ical Lines  or  Rays ;  and  all  the  Parts  that  compose  them, 
adhere  and  joyn  to  one-another,  in  such  manner,  that 
when  any  of  'em  are  push'd,  all  in  the  same  L/ine  are 
affected  by  the  Impulse  given  to  others." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  review  his  concluding  experiments 
in  detail,  although  some  of  them,  such  as  the  outlining  of 
his  hand  in  fire  on  the  inside  of  a  globe  partly  lined  with 
sealing-wax,  and  the  movements  of  threads  electrified 
within  the  cylinder  following  that  of  his  finger  outside  of 
it,  are  striking  enough.  The  research  extended  over  four 
years,  interrupted  at  times  by  other  investigations,  mainly 
in  pneumatics.  It  was  a  brilliant  piece  of  work,  and 
probably  the  first  thoroughly  scientific  investigation 
electrical  phenomena. 

Hauksbee's     achievements    attracted    great    attentio 
Newton,  after  the  publication  of  his  Optics  in  1704,  e 
perimented  on  a  glass  globe  for  himself,  and  the  results  a 
pear  in   the   second   edition    of    that   work,    which   was 
published  in  1717.     He  also  felt  the  electric  wind  dashing 


DR.   WALL.  469 

against  paper,  and  saw  the  sheet  ''become  lurid  like  a  glow 
worm."  l 

In  1708,  Dr.  Wall,2  who  evidently  disagreed  with 
Hauksbee's  conclusions  as  to  the  electric  nature  of  the 
barometer  light,  evolved  a  hypothesis  concerning  the 
amber  about  as  odd  as  that  which  Father  Grandamicus 
had  proposed  to  account  for  the  earth's  rotation.  Gran- 
damicus said  that  the  earth  does  not  rotate  because  it  is  a 
magnet,  and  Wall  asserts  that  the  amber  attracts,  not  be- 
cause of  its  electrical  quality,  but  because  it  is  "a  natural 
phosphorus,  a  mineral  oleosum  coagulated  with  a  mineral 
acid  of  spirit  of  salt."  Wall,  however,  attains  immortality 
neither  for  his  theories  nor  for  his  experiments,  but  for 
an  expression.  Hauksbee,  long  before,  had  heard  the 
crackles  and  had  likened  the  fires  in  his  glass  globe  to 
flashes  of  lightning.  Wall,  rubbing  a  large  piece  of  amber 
and  seeing  the  sparks  and  hearing  the  noise,  however, 
says:  u  Now  I  doubt  not,  but  on  using  a  longer  and  larger 
piece  of  amber,  both  the  cracklings  and  light  would  be 
much  greater,  because  I  have  never  yet  found  any  crack- 
ling from  the  head  of  my  cane,  though  it  is  a  pretty  large 
one:  and  it  seems  in  some  degree  to  resemble  Thunder  and 
Lightning."  It  is  a  pity  that  Wall's  far-fetched  notion 
that  the  amber  is  phosphorus,  and  its  light  that  of  phos- 
phorus, should  cast  a  shadow  on  his  title  to  being  the  first 
who  saw  in  the  electric  spark  and  detonations  the  effects 
of  Jove's  armory  in  miniature. 

Bernouilli,  to  whom  Frederick  of  Prussia,  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  Leibnitz,  then  President  of  the  Berlin 
Academy  of  Sciences,  had  presented  a  gold  medal,  worth 
forty  ducats,  as  a  reward  for  his  discovery,  denied  Hauks- 
bee's explanation  of  the  mercury  light.  It  is  needless  to 
review  his  contentions;  they  went  the  way  of  the  learned 
arguments  whereby  the  Italian  ecclesiastics  in  Galileo's 
time  sought  to  eliminate  the  moons  of  Jupiter. 

The  progress  of  electrical  discovery  had  now  reached  one 

Optics.     Q.  8.  2Phil.  Trans;,  No.  314,  p.  69,  1708. 


470         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  those  temporary  halting-places  which  are  easily  dis- 
cernible in  looking  back  over  its  path.  The  latest  problem 
had  apparently  been  solved.  To  many  it  no  doubt  ap- 
peared that  all  the  capabilities  of  the  rubbed  electric  had 
been  revealed.  It  had  given  light,  attracted  and  directed 
threads,  yielded  effluvia  sensible  to  the  touch  and  trans- 
mitted its  virtue  to  other  bodies  near  it  so  as  to  cause  them 
to  glow.  No  new  possibilities  were  in  sight.  For  nearly 
twenty  years  no  one  sought  for  any,  and  the  very  few  ex- 
periments that  are  recorded  merely  thrash  over  old  straw. 
The  philosophical  world  was  devoting  all  its  energies  to 
the  digestion  of  the  colossal  intellectual  banquet  which 
Newton  had  spread  before  it. 


*'A  masterpiece  of  English  charity"  is  what  old  Fuller 
says  of  it — that  ancient  foundation  of  James  I.,  in  the 
chapel  whereof  the  boys  of  Grey  Friars  school  and  the 
fourscore  old  pensioners  of  the  Hospital  used  to  assemble 
on  Founder's  Day  listening  to  the  prayers  and  psalms. 

Who  does  not  know  Thackeray's  description  of  the 
place?  It  is  one  of  those  old  Charterhouse  brethren  whom 
I  have  now  to  call  back;  an  old  brother  who  sat  on  the 
same  old  benches  in  the  ancient  chapel,  and  who  passed 
away  and  gave  place  to  another  old  brother,  and  he  to  an- 
other, and  another,  long  before  Thackeray's  time,  and  one 
whom,  if  we  may  credit  what  another  philosopher  high 
in  favor  in  court  said  about  him,  was  a  testy  and  crusty  old 
gentleman.  But  philosophers  high  at  court,  and  philoso- 
phers who  are  poor  brothers,  rarely  appreciate  all  one  an- 
other's excellences;  and  besides,  the  young  Cistercians  had 
a  much  better  opportunity  of  knowing  this  particular  poor 
brother  than  the  dignified  gentry  at  Whitehall.  For 
Stephen  Gray  never  hung  up  his  chief  critic,  the  Reverend 
Joseph  Desaguiliers,  tutor  to  his  Royal  Highness,  by  the 
neck  and  heels  and  drew  sparks  from  him — and  that  is 
what  he  did,  besides  many  other  astonishing  things,  to  the 


STEPHEN   GRAY.  47! 

Grey  Friars  lads;  and  we  may  be  quite  sure,  not  without 
their  entire  consent  and  approbation. 

There  is  no  biographer  to  tell  Gray's  history,  however 
curtly.  His  memorial  is  hidden  in  the  early  volumes  of 
Philosophical  Transactions1 — the  annals  of  the  Royal  So- 
ciety which  are  seldom  read  except  through  some  one's 
abridgments.  He  appears  there  first  during  the  halt 
period  in  1720,  and  evidently  with  Boyle's  experiments  on 
the  feminine  head-gear  in  mind,  says  that  he  has  made 
leather  and  parchment  and  paper  and  hair  and  feathers 
and  threads  all  electrical  by  rubbing  them,  so  that  it  al- 
most looks  as  if  he  had  procured  one  of  those  towering 
structures  of  millinery  and,  after  dissecting  it,  had  electri- 
fied every  bit  of  it  in  detail.  Then  he  disappears  for  nine 
years,  and  we  do  not  know  what  he  was  doing  in  that  in- 
terval any  more  than  before  his  sudden  advent,  although 
it  is  said  that  in  his  early  days  he  devoted  much  attention 
to  optics.  When  he  returns  to  view  in  February,  1732,  and 
recounts  his  discoveries  of  the  preceding  three  years,  he 
dates  his  letter  to  the  Society  from  the  Charterhouse,  and 
the  presumption  follows  that  the  world  has  shown  him  its 
seamy  side,  and  that  after  fifty  years  of  struggle,  he  wel- 
comes the  peaceful  asylum  and  sober  garb  of  the  poor 
brethren.  But  it  would  be  altogether  wrong  to  suppose 
that  he  utters  any  note  of  repining.  On  the  contrary,  it 
is  evident  that  he  is  now  in  possession  of  facilities  for  do- 
ing work  in  which  he  delights;  and  besides,  he  has  two 
good  friends,  one  a  well-to-do  country  gentleman,  the 
other  resident  in.  London  and  a  member  of  the  Society; 
and,  better  still,  both  cordially  sympathetic  in  all  his  aims 
and  endeavors.  He  spends  his  summers  with  them,  and 
makes  the  house  of  one  of  them  the  scene  of  a  great  dis- 
covery, and  worthy  of  a  commemorative  tablet,  if  it  could 
be  now  identified, 

1  Gray's  papers  are  as  follows:  Phil.  Trans.,  1720,  vol.  31,  p.  104;  1731, 
vol.  37,  p.  18;  1732,  vol.  37,  pp.  285,  397;  1735,  vol.  39,  pp.  16,  166;  1736, 
vol.  39,  p.  400. 


472          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

A  fine  laboratory  fitted  with  delicate  and  costly  appar- 
atus, skilled  workmen  at  one's  call,  and  unlimited  capital 
to  draw  upon,  did  not  fall  to  the  lot  of  the  electrical  dis- 
coverer of  Gray's  time.  There  were  no  electrical  shares 
quoted  on  the  world's  exchanges  in  those  days,  and  what- 
ever the  magnetizers  may  have  gained,  no  one  had  ever 
made  a  penny  out  of  electricity,  or  even  perceived  channels 
whereby  profitably  to  lead  other  people  to  lose  pounds. 
Therefore,  no  one  supplied  Gray  with  means  pecuniary  or 
otherwise  for  the  prosecution  of  his  work.  But  that  did 
not  trouble  him.  There  were  his  fishing-rods  and  his 
canes,  the  kitchen  poker  and  cabbages  and  pieces  of  brick; 
hemp  twine  was  cheap,  and  by  getting  along  with  these  he 
could  economize  sufficiently  to  acquire  the  more  expensive 
part  of  his  apparatus,  a  little  silk  and  a  few  glass  tubes. 
If  a  suspended  boy  was  wanted,  no  doubt  there  were 
plenty  of  the  Grey  Friars  lads  willing  enough  to  undergo 
the  astonishing  experiences  which  the  old  brother  con- 
trived for  them. 

Up  to  this  time  no  one  (Von  Guericke  excepted,  and  he 
forgotten)  had  thought  to  inquire  whether  the  electric 
virtue  could  be  made  to  pass  from  one  body  to  another. 
This  Gray  did,  and  came  to  do  so  through  the  idea  sug- 
gesting itself  that  if  Hauksbee's  glass  tube  could  com- 
municate light  to  another  object  by  its  electric  quality, 
why  could  it  not  communicate  the  quality  itself? — in  which 
case  the  body  receiving  the  virtue  would  have  the  same 
property  of  attracting  and  repelling  light  bodies  as  the  ex- 
cited tube.  It  also  struck  him  that  if  this  could  be  done, 
"the  attractive  virtue  might  be  carried  to  bodies  that  were 
many  feet  distant  from  the  tube." 

He  procures  a  glass  tube  about  a  yard  long  and  a  littl< 
over  an  inch  in  diameter.  To  keep  out  the  dust,  he  puts 
corks  in  the  ends — an  expedient  which  turns  out  to  be  the 
quickest  possible  means  of  revealing  exactly  what  he  was 
looking  for.  Now  he  rubs  the  tube  in  order  to  excite  i' 
electrically,  and  to  his  surprise  he  finds  that  feathers  and 


GRAY'S  EXPERIMENTS.  473 

pieces  of  foil  fly  as  readily  to  the  cork  in  the  end  of  the 
tube  as  to  the  tube  itself — and  thus  it  was  plain  that  the 
virtue  had  instantly  passed  from  glass  to  cork. 

He  at  once  attacks  the  second  part  of  his  problem: 
how  far  will  this  virtue  travel?  Into  the  cork  in  the 
glass  tube  he  inserts  a  wooden  rod  four  inches  long,  hav- 
ing an  ivory  ball — which  he  "happened  to  have  by  him  " 
— at  its  end.  The  ball  attracts  brass  foil  when  the  tube 
is  rubbed.  Gradually  he  increases  the  length  of  the  rod, 
then  substitutes  for  it  a  wire  until  the  sagging  of  the 
latter  makes  it  troublesome  to  handle,  and  then  he  hangs 
the  ball  from  the  tube  by  a  long  piece  of  hemp  thread. 
Still  no  change  in  the  attractive  power,  despite  the  dis- 
tance between  ball  and  tube. 

All  this  is  so  far  beyond  his  expectations  that  it  seems 
to  him  that  the  effect  must  in  some  measure  depend  upon 
the  nature  of  the  ivory  ball;  so  he  takes  it  off  and  substi- 
tutes other  objects.  He  has  no  store  of  rare  chemicals  to 
draw  upon;  but  the  street  and  courtyard  yield  him  bits  of 
brick  and  stone  and  tiles  and  chalk;  and  the  garden,  dif- 
ferent vegetables  and  plants;  and  his  purse  a  gold  guinea, 
a  silver  shilling  and  a  copper  halfpenny.  After  he  has 
tried  all  these  things — always  with  the  same  result — he 
looks  about  his  chamber  and  finds  the  fire  shovel,  and  the 
tongs  and  the  poker,  and  the  tea-kettle  (which  works  just 
the  same  whether  full  of  water  or  empty),  and  his  silver 
pint-pot.  By  this  time  he  considers  the  question  suffi- 
ciently settled,  and  gets  out  his  fishing-rod  to  see  if  the 
virtue  will  go  over  even  so  long  an  object  as  that.  But  it 
does  and  over  other  rods  fastened  thereto;  and  how  much 
further  it  might  travel  he  cannot  tell,  because  his  little 
chamber  is  not  large  enough  to  let  him  use  a  series  of  rods 
over  eighteen  feet  in  length. 

The  month  of  May,  1729,  has  now  come,  and  Gray  is 
glad  to  exchange  the  bricks  and  mortar  of  London  for  the 
country  fields.  His  "honored  friend,  John  Godfrey, 
Esq.,"  of  Norton  Court,  near  Faversham,  Kent,  has  in- 


474         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

vited  him  thither,  and,  to  the  joys  of  a  country  life,  Gray 
has  the  added  felicity  of  plenty  of  room.  The  rod  is 
lengthened  to  thirty-two  feet,  and  gives  way  to  thread,  so 
that  he  can  stand  on  Godfrey's  balcony  and  swing  the 
ivory  ball  attached  to  its  lower  end  over  the  scraps  of  foil 
on  the  ground,  thirty-four  feet  below.  As  he  can  find  no 
higher  elevation,  he  concludes  to  suspend  his  experiments 
until  his  return  to  London  and  try  them  in  the  dome  of 
St.  Paul's,  where  he  could  get  just  ten  times  the  above 
altitude.  He  had  thought  of  a  horizontal  line  of  thread, 
and  had  tried  one  looped  to  a  beam  in  order  to  suspend 
the  ball.  But  then  the  ball  refused  to  attract,  because,  as 
he  says,  the  electric  virtue  runs  to  the  beam  and  not  to  the 
ball. 

Instead  of  going  back  to  the  Charterhouse,  he  proceeds 
to  Otterden  Place,  the  residence  of  "Gran  vile  Wheler, 
Esq.,  member  R.  S.,  with  whom  I  have  the  honor  to  be 
lately  acquainted,"  and  takes  with  him  a  little  glass  tube 
44  in  order  to  give  Mr.  Wheler  a  specimen  of  my  experi- 
ments." 

But  the  moment  Wheler  sees  what  has  been  done,  he 
wants  much  more  than  a  specimen,  for  his  interest  is  en- 
thusiastic. In  fact,  he  develops  a  desire  more  burning 
even  than  that  of  Gray  himself  to  find  out  how  far  the  elec- 
tricity will  travel.  He  insists  upon  a  long  horizontal  line 
being  put  up  immediately.  Gray  tells  him  that  it  will  be 
useless,  for  the  virtue  will  run  off  at  the  supports.  Then 
says  Gray,  "he  proposed  a  silk  line  to  support  the  line  by 
which  the  electric  virtue  was  to  pass.  I  told  him  it  might 
be  better  upon  the  account  of  its  smallness,  so  that  there 
would  be  less  virtue  carried  from  the  line  of  communica- 
tion." Gray  therefore  had  already  found  out  that  the  con- 
ductivity of  his  line  depended  upon  its  "smallness,"  and 
that  the  smaller  it  was  the  less  virtue  it  would  carry. 

There  is  a  gallery  eighty  feet  long  in  Wheler's  house, 
and  there  Wheler,  and  all  his  servants  helping  him,  speed- 
ily stretch  a  packthread  line  over  taut  silk  threads.  The 


ELECTRICAL  CONDUCTION   AND   INSULATION.          475 

virtue  seemingly  has  no  more  trouble  in  traversing  eighty 
feet  than  as  many  inches;  and  then  the  line  is  carried 
backward  and  forward  to  increase  its  length,  until  it  meas- 
ures over  three  hundred  feet,  when  the  silk  threads  break 
under  its  weight.  However,  that  is  easily  repaired,  thinks 
Gray,  substituting  metal  wire  for  the  silk;  but  now,  to  his 
dismay,  the  attraction  of  the  ball  disappears.  No  matter 
how  vigorously  they  rub  the  tube,  apparently  no  virtue 
from  it  goes  upon  the  line,  for  the  bits  of  brass  foil  under 
the  ball  at  the  far  end  remain  motionless.  Wheler's 
happy  suggestion  of  the  silk  thread  supports,  now  results 
in  a  great  discovery.  Why  silk? 

"We  are  now  convinced,"  says  Gray,  uthat  the  success 
we  had  before,  depended  upon  the  lines  that  supported  the 
line  of  communication  being  silk,  and  not  upon  their  being 
small." 

More  than  a  century  before,  Gilbert  had  cut  off  electric 
attraction  by  interposing  silk  or  water  between  the  electric 
and  the  attracted  body;  and  this  had  been  done  by  Hauks- 
bee,  and,  in  fact,  all  the  later  experimenters.  So  also 
the  latter  believed  that  substances  were  divided  into  elec- 
trics and  non-electrics,  although  the  list  of  the  former  was 
constantly  increasing.  But  no  one  before  had  recognized 
the  fact  that  the  electric  virtue  would  apparently  refuse  to 
pass  over  certain  substances  while  freely  traversing  others, 
and  this  even  when  the  first  were  short  bodies  and  the  sec- 
ond very  long.  In  other  words,  Gray  had  discovered  the 
difference  between  the  electric  conductivity  of  bodies  de- 
pending on  the  substances  composing  them,  and  had 
found  in  silk  threads  this  conductivity  so  small  as  to  be 
inconsiderable.  Some  bodies  evidently  conveyed  elec- 
tricity and  some  did  not,  and  those  which  did  not  could 
be  used  to  prevent  the  electrical  virtue  escaping  from 
those  which  did.  Here  began  the  world's  practical  and 
useful  knowledge  of  electrical  conduction  and  insulation. 

Wheler's  ingenuity  rose  to  the  occasion,  and,  by  multi- 
plying the  silk  threads,  he  managed  to  make  the  line 


476         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

outgrow  the  gallery.  Then  he  erected  the  first  aerial  line 
of  communication  on  poles,  extending  over  his  land  for  a 
distance  of  650  feet.  The  weather  was  warm — it  was  July 
— and  the  experimenters  were  ablaze  with  enthusiasm.  In 
fact,  they  exerted  themselves  so  much  in  running  from 
one  end  of  the  line  to  the  other,  Wheler  now  rubbing  the 
tube  and  Gray  watching  the  bits  of  foil,  and  then  vice 
versa,  that,  suddenly,  in  the  late  afternoon,  when  the 
attraction  ceased  for  the  day,  Gray  naively  remarks  that  it 
could  not  positively  be  said  whether  this  was  "caused  by 
the  dew  falling  or  by  my  being  very  hot,  but  I  rather  im- 
pute it  to  the  latter." 

After  discovering  that  the  virtue  could  be  made  to  travel 
from  the  tube  over  three  lines  simultaneously,  to  Mr. 
Wheler'' s  "great  parlor,  little  parlor  and  hall,"  Gray  de- 
parts, leaving  Wheler  to  expend  his  excitement  in  electri- 
fying l'a  hot  poker,  a  live  chicken,  a  large  map  and  an 
umbrella." 

In  the  fall  of  1729  the  discovery  that  the  virtue  will 
travel  from  tube  to  line  and  then  over  the  latter  without 
direct  contact  of  the  tube — or,  in  other  words,  by  induction 
— is  made.  Then  follow  further  researches  into  the  elec- 
trification of  different  bodies.  Gray  charges  a  soap-bubble 
and  makes  it  attractive.  By  means  of  hollow  and  solid 
suspended  wooden  cubes  he  demonstrates  the  important 
fact  that  the  charge  is  resident  on  the  surface  of  the  elec- 
trified body,  for  ''no  part  but  the  surface  attracts."  Then, 
in  the  spring  of  1730,  he  suspends  a  boy,  and  finds  that 
when  the  tube  is  rubbed  and  held  to  the  boy's  feet,  the 
leaf  brass  is  vigorously  attracted  by  the  boy's  face,  thus 
demonstrating  the  conductibility  of  the  human  body.  It 
is,  doubtless,  not  pleasant  to  the  urchin  to  feel  the  fire 
pattering  against  his  cheeks,  but  Gray  encourages  him  to 
bear  it  manfully,  because  should  he  turn  the  back  of  his 
head  the  virtue,  says  the  discoverer,  would  be  greatly  "cut 
off  by  the  short  hair." 

In  the  fall  of  1730  Wheler  again  appears  with  his  un- 


ELECTRIC  INDUCTION.  477 

quencliable  desire  for  longer  lines,  and  one  of  866  feet,  is 
successfully  used;  but  Gray  has  seemingly  satisfied  him- 
self on  this  subject,  for,  after  several  months'  silence,  he 
reappears  in  June,  1731,  with  a  host  of  new  experiments, 
depending  mainly  upon  his  discovery  that  it  is  possible  to 
insulate  electrified  bodies  by  placing  them  on  cakes  of 
resin.  This  gives  more  employment  for  the  Charterhouse 
lads,  who  are  hung  up  on  hair  lines  and  stood  up  on 
blocks,  and  electrified  tubes  are  applied  to  them  in  all 
sorts  of  ways,  which  need  not  here  be  detailed. 

A  year  later,  1732,  Godfrey  and  Wheler  are  both  pressed 
into  service  to  aid  him  in  making  experiments  to  show  in- 
duction; and  these  lead  him  to  the  conclusion  that  "the 
electric  virtue  may  not  only  be  carried  from  the  tube  by  a 
rod  or  line  to  distant  bodies,  but  that  the  same  rod  or  line 
will  communicate  that  virtue  to  another  rod  or  line  at  a 
distance  from  it,  and  by  that  other  rod  or  line  the  attractive 
force  may  be  carried  to  other  distant  bodies."  And  thus 
was  proved  for  the  first  time  that  an  electrified  line  could 
induce  a  charge  on  another  line;  and,  in  fact,  Gray  found 
that  this  induction  would  take  place  over  distances  as  great 
as  a  foot  between  the  two  lines. 

Gray's  experiments  had  now  extended  over  three  years, 
during  which  time,  despite  the  attention  which  results  so 
novel  and  -unprecedented  naturally  excited,  no  one  had 
appeared  to  rival  him.  Dr.  Desaguiliers,  writing  some 
years  after  Gray's  death,  finds  an  explanation  of  this  in 
Gray's  irascible  temperament  and  intolerance  of  opposi- 
tion, and  gives  as  an  excuse  for  the  long  withholding  of 
his  own  observations  that  their  publication  would  probably 
have  caused  Gray  to  abandon  the  research.  Nevertheless, 
when  the  field  was  entered,  Gray  welcomed  the  interloper, 
and,  so  far  from  relaxing  his  efforts,  continued  them  to  the 
end  of  his  life  with  a  pertinacity  rivaling  that  of  Hooke. 
At  all  events,  if  such  solicitude  as  Desaguiliers  manifests 
was  sufficient  to  deter  the  English  philosophers  from  in- 
dependent investigation,  it  at  least  seems  not  to  have  ex- 


478      THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

tended  across  the  channel  ;  for,  in  the  spring  of  1733, 
Charles  Francois  de  Cisternay  Dufay1  began  his  famous 
work. 


Dufay  was  then  thirty-five  years  of  age,  and  perhaps  as 
widely  different  from  Gray  as  one  man  can  be  from  an- 
other. To  the  broadest  general  culture  and  knowledge  of 
the  world  he  united  a  charming  personality,  a  keen  wit, 
and  exquisite  tact,  the  last  never  better  exhibited  than 
when,  instead  of  antagonizing  Gray,  he  managed  to  con- 
vert the  sensitive  philosopher  into  a  cordial  and  communi- 
cative friend  and  colleague.  He  had  been  educated  as  a 
soldier,  and  was  a  lieutenant  in  the  Picardy  regiment  at 
the  age  of  fourteen;  but  his  natural  taste  was  for  scientific 
study,  and  not  at  all  for  military  life.  He  exchanged 
arms  for  diplomacy,  and  the  latter  for  science.  In  his 
brief  lifetime  of  forty-one  years  (he  died  in  1739)  he  made 
himself  a  chemist,  an  anatomist,  a  botanist,  a  geometri- 
cian, an  astronomer,  a  mechanician,  an  antiquary,  and  an 
electrician,  and  in  every  one  of  these  varied  capacities 
shone  with  unusual  brilliancy.  The  French  Academy 
then  recognized  only  six  subjects  as  worthy  of  public  dis- 
cussion, namely,  chemistry,  anatomy,  botany,  geometry, 
astronomy,  and  physics.  Dufay,  says  Fontenelle,2  in  his 
celebrated  eulogy,  was  the  only  man  of  his  time  who  con- 
tributed to  the  Academic  annals  investigations  in  every 
one  of  these  branches.  His  early  studies  on  the  Bologna 
stone  and  phosphorus  resulted  in  the  discovery  that  all 
stones  containing  salts  of  lime  become  luminous  on  cal- 
cination; his  essay  on  the  magnet,  published  in  1728,  the 
phenomena  of  which  he  regarded  as  in  accordance  with 
the  Cartesian  theory,  epitomizes  all  existing  knowledge 

1See  Dufay's  eight  original  memoirs.  Histoire  de  1' Academic  Royal 
des  Sciences,  Paris,  for  years  1733,  1734  and  1737. 

2 Fontenelle:  Eloge  de  M.  Dufay.  Hist,  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des  Sciences, 
1739- 


DUFAY'S  EXPERIMENTS.  479 

on  the  subject.  In  the  spring  of  1733  he  learned,  with 
absorbing  interest,  of  the  achievements  of  Gray  and 
Wheler,  and  determined  at  once  to  prosecute  them  further 
and  in  entirely  new  directions. 

At  the  very  outset  he  makes  a  discovery  which  over- 
throws the  distinction  between  electrics  and  non-electrics, 
and  brings  to  an  end  the  efforts  to  enlarge  the  list  of  the 
former,  which  had  continued  ever  since  the  time  of  Gil- 
bert. The  number  of  different  substances  which  he  tests 
is  legion — all  sorts  of  woods  and  stones,  especially  all 
those  materials  which  earlier  investigators  had  been  un- 
able to  electrify.  Some  he  finds  require  more  u  chafing  or 
heating"  than  others;  some,  such  as  the  gums,  he  cannot 
so  treat  without  rendering  them  viscid;  while  the  electrifi- 
cation of  the  metals  is  so  slight  that  he  doubts  whether  he 
has  really  recognized  it:  but  in  the  end  he  announces  that 
all  bodies  (the  metals  and  soft  substances  excepted)  are 
endowed  with  the  property  which  for  ages  was  supposed 
to  be  peculiar  to  the  amber,  or,  in  other  words,  become 
electrics  by  themselves  (electriques  par  eux-me"mes). 

Then  he  turns  to  Gray's  experiments  on  conduction  and 
verifies  them,  but  in  so  doing  his  attention  becomes  con- 
centrated upon  the  supports  for  the  electrified  body — Gray's 
silk  strings  and  cakes  of  resin.  He  varies  the  material 
of  which  these  supports  are  made.  Pieces  of  metal,  or 
wood,  or  stone,  on  wooden  or  metal  standards,  he  could 
not  electrify  by  bringing  the  excited  glass  tube  near  to 
them,  but  when  he  substituted  glass  supports  then  he 
could  do  so.  Immediately  it  dawns  upon  him  that  the 
possibility  of  electrifying  a  body  does  not  depend  upon  the 
nature  of  the  body  itself  so  much  as  upon  its  being  insu- 
lated, so  that  the  virtue  cannot  escape  from  it.  Again  he 
collects  a  great  variety  of  objects — woods  and  stones  and 
amber  and  agate,  even  oranges  and  books  and  red-hot 
coals — and  placing  them,  one  after  another,  on  the  glass 
standards,  brings  the  rubbed  glass  tube  near  to  them, 
when  every  one  of  them  becomes  electrified;  and  what 


480         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

is  still  more  curious,  the  very  ones,  the  metals,  which  it 
was  most  difficult  or  apparently  impossible  to  charge 
simply  by  rubbing  them,  now  receive  more  electricity  than 
""  all  others  on  mere  approximation  of  the  excited  tube. 
Here  are  two  capital  discoveries  made  at  the  very  thres- 
hold of  his  labor. 

This  is  not  altogether  unusual,  as  many  a  later  investi- 
gator can  testify.  Long  study  and  thought  produces  a 
sort  of  mental  polarization  that  somehow  dulls  the  percept- 
ive faculties,  or  results  in  an  intellectual  inertia  which 
renders  it  difficult  for  the  mind  to  turn  itself  out  of  the 
path  in  which  it  has  been  moving.  And,  as  a  consequence, 
the  power  of  original  thought,  of  invention,  is  apt  to 
weaken  even  in  those  most  highly  gifted  with  creative 
genius,  unless  the  brain-work  be  differently  directed  for  a 
time,  or  wholly  intermitted  for  a  period  of  rest.  There 
seems  to  be  no  exhaustion  of  energy,  for  the  thinking 
mechanism  may  continue  its  operation,  although  fruit- 
lessly, with  even  greater  assiduity  than  ever.  It  is  rather 
a  new  condition  of  the  apparatus  which  causes  a  change 
in  the  quality  of  its  accomplishment.  Therefore  when  a 
new  mind — not  polarized — attacks  the  problem,  it  is  very 
apt  not  only  to  perceive  solutions  which  evade  the  recog- 
nition'of  those  which  have  long  grappled  with  it,  but  to 
see  the  most  prominent  and  general  ones  first.  It  is  an  in- 
cident of  progress,  and  apparently  a  necessary  one,  that 
obstacles  shall  be  attacked  by  a  succession  of  new  minds; 
and  it  constantly  happens  that  a  new  mind  without  exper- 
ience is  often  more  potent  in  overcoming  them  than  one 
rich  with  accumulated  knowledge. 

Gray  had  almost  instantly  discovered  that  electricity 
would  pass  from  the  excited  body  to  one  not  excited:  from 
the  glass  tube  to  the  cork.  Dufay  also  at  once  finds  all 
bodies  capable  of  electrification.  Gray  was  halted  by  doubts 
as  to  the  effect  of  the  physical  conditions  of  the  body  to  which 
the  charge  is  communicated.  So  Dufay  similarly  pauses  be- 
cause of  misgivings  as  to  the  influence  of  color — these  not 


DUFAY'S  EXPERIMENTS.  481 

of  his  own  suggestion,  but  because  Gray  had  said  that 
among  electrified  bodies  physically  alike,  those  which  are 
red,  orange,  or  yellow,  attract  very  much  more  strongly 
than  those  which  are  blue,  green  or  purple.  Dufay  saw 
in  this  not  merely  a  possible  cause  of  error  in  his  future 
researches,  but  a  suggestion  that  there  might  be  a  relation 
between  electricity  and  light,  if  the  former  had  a  capacity 
for  color  selection.  For  both  reasons,  he  proceeds. 

His  initial  experiments  seem  to  confirm  Gray  decisively. 
Of  nine  suspended  ribbons  (black,  white  and  the  rainbow 
colors),  the  rubbed  glass  tube  attracts  the  black  first  and 
the  red  last.  White  gauze  and  black  gauze  intercept  the 
electric  virtue,  while  gauzes  of  the  rainbow  hues,  the  red 
especially,  allow  it  to  pass.  Dufay  presses  on  to  the 
broader  question,  fully  believing  that  he  is  on  the  track  of 
a  startling  discovery. 

If  color  alone  exercises  the  effect,  it  can  make  no  differ- 
ence, he  argues,  whether  the  hue  be  natural  or  artificial: 
whether  it  appear  on  the  rose-leaf  or  on  a  painting.  So 
he  tries  the  flowers — and  the  signs  fail.  The  scarlet  gera- 
nium responds  to  the  attracting  glass  as  readily  as  does  the 
purple  pansy — the  green  leaves  as  quickly  as  the  white 
petals  of  the  lily.  Perhaps  there  is  something  in  the  inher- 
ent quality  of  these  vegetable  substances  which  interferes. 
Clearly  the  crucial  test  requires  pure  color,  and  that  is  only 
in  the  rainbow. 

He  directs  a  sunbeam  through  a  prism,  and  spreads  it 
out  into  its  gorgeous  spectrum,  and  distributes  therein 
white  ribbons,  so  that  the  sun  paints  one  red,  another 
orange,  another  yellow,  and  so  on  through  nature's  color 
box.  But  the  ribbons  act  like  the  flowers.  No  one  of 
them  responds  to  the  electric  pull  any  more  than  does  an- 
other. The  notion  that  electric  attraction  could  tear  the 
sunbeam  to  pieces,  and  change  it  from  white  to  red  by 
drawing  out  the  blue  rays,  was  only  a  delusion. 

Then  Dufay  went  back  to  his  colored  ribbons  and  wet 
them — and  their  differences  vanished.  He  heated  his 


482          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

gauzes  and  the  virtue  went  through  black  or  red  with  equal 
facility.  He  had  been  misled  by  the  dressing  which  the 
makers  had  put  in  the  ribbons  to  give  them  body:  that  was 
all — the  color  exerted  no  influence. 

Perhaps  this  left  him  in  something  of  a  questioning 
attitude  toward  Gray's  other  conclusions,  for  he  begins  to 
investigate  long-distance  transmission  anew;  and  finally 
reaches  the  conclusion  that  the  substances  which  are  most 
difficult  to  electrify — such  as  metals  or  wet  objects — best 
convey  the  virtue;  while  on  the  other  hand,  those  easiest 
excited — amber  or  silk — can  hardly  be  got  to  convey  it  at 
all.  He  puts  up  a  packthread  line  1256  feet  long,  and  wets 
it ;  and  the  electricity  traverses  it  with  the  same  freedom 
with  which  it  nowadays  runs  along  wet  telegraph  poles,  or 
escapes  from  the  wires  which  touch  the  dripping  foliage. 
For  Gray's  silk  supports,  he  substitutes  glass  tubes  and 
masses  of  Spanish  wax,  and  thus,  for  the  first  time,  uses 
solid  insulators  upon  an  electric  line  of  communication. 
The  new  principle  destroyed  the  non-electric  and  the 
electric  as  distinctive  significations — it  made  non-electrics 
into  u conductors,"  and  electrics  into  u non-conductors." 

Gray  had  shown  how  one  line  may  electrify  another 
placed  near  it.  Dufay  varies  this  by  placing  two  short 
lines,  respectively  six  and  eight  feet  in  length,  end  to  end 
with  an  air-space  intervening.  W/hen  the  gap  is  a  foot 
wide  he  says  that  the  attraction,  despite  the  shortness  of 
the  lines,  is  as  weak  as  if  the  virtue  had  traversed  the  con- 
tinuous length  of  1256  feet.  Nevertheless  it  seems  to  him 
that  the  charge  can  escape  from  line  to  air,  and  therefore 
he  says,  coining  the  word,  the  necessity  is  apparent  that 
the  transmitting  cord  should  be  ''insulated." 

He  has  meanwhile  remarked  that  if  he  touches  the  ball; 
hanging  at  the  end  of  his  electrified  line,  it  refuses  to  at- 
tract; the  electricity,  he  says,  being  dissipated  through 
him  to  the  floor.  But  suppose  he  touches  it  with  a  small 

1 "  Que  la  corde  dont  on  se  sert  pour  transmettre  au  loin  l'electricit£  soit 
isolte." 


DUFAY'S  EXPERIMENTS.  483 

body,  itself  insulated.  Then  the  ball  loses  only  a  part  of 
its  electricity,  which  goes  to  the  last-named  body.  Conse- 
quently he  says,  the  volume  of  the  electrified  ball  must  be 
considered.  If  too  large,  the  virtue  reaching  it  becomes  / 
too  extended  to  act  quickly;  if  not  large  enough,  it  will  not 
take  all  that  is  brought  to  it  by  the  cord.  These  were  the 
first  perceptions  of  the  distribution  of  an  electric  charge  on 
a  conductor.  Gray  had  found  it  resident  on  the  surface. 

Dufay  now  emulates  the  English  philosopher  in  sus- 
pending people  by  silk  lines  and  electrifying  them;  but  he 
soon  discards  children  and  suspends  himself.  Then  he 
compares  the  sensation  caused  by  an  electrified  tube  near 
his  face  to  that  of  a  spider-web  drawn  over  it,  and  for  the 
first  time  feels  the  pricks  and  burns  of  the  electric  sparks 
as  they  dart  from  his  fingers.  He  believes  them  to  be  fire, 
and,  as  such,  altogether  different  from  the  hitherto  seen 
glow. 

His  is  a  nimble  mind,  and  it  leaps  from  one  subject  to 
another  with  marvelous  rapidity.      But  this  is  necessary; 
for  he  is  not  only  breaking  a  new  path,  but  rebuilding  the 
old  one.     As  he  meets  a  new  problem  he  discovers  that  the 
vantage  ground  from  which  he  must   proceed   is  infirm. 
That  necessitates  re-examination  of  the  foundation  facts; 
and   in  this  way  he  finds  himself  side  by  side  with  Von 
uericke,   contemplating   the    singular   behavior    of    the 
feather  which  the  sulphur  globe  drives  away,  and  which, 
levertheless,  like  the  moon,  always  turns  the  same  face, 
•ufay  lets  fall  some  gold-leaf  upon  his  excited  tube  and 
sees  it  repelled  in  the  same  way,  avoiding  the  tube  as  he 
:hases   the  fragments  around    the   room.     But  if,  mean- 
diile,  he  rubs  the  tube,   the  leaf  comes  to  it  and  goes 
iway  from  it  alternately,  following  the  motion  of  the  hand, 
hen  the  leaf  touches  the  tube,  he  says,  it  becomes  elec- 
"ified  thereby  by  communication.     Yet  obviously  it  is  re- 
:lled.     Therefore  all  electrified  bodies  first  attract  bodies     / 
:hat  are  not  electrified,  communicate  to  them   their  own 
electricity,  and  that  done,  repel  them.     Nor  will  the  latter 


484         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

be  again  attracted  until,  having  touched  some  other  body, 
the  acquired  electricity  is  lost.  This,  which  Von  Guericke 
saw,  is  now  explained  by  Dufay. 

But  Dufay  went  a  little  further  and  imagined  a  whirl,  a 
field  of  force,  around  the  tube,  and  figured  to  himself  the 
action  going  on  there  and  not  in  the  body  of  the  tube. 
The  attracted  body,  on  touching  the  tube  and  becoming 
electrified,  acquires  a  field  of  its  own,  the  two  fields  repel, 
and  so  long  as  that  of  either  body  remains  the  same,  the 
relative  position  of  the  two  is  unchanged.  But  if  the  field 
of  the  attracted  feather,  for  example,  is  dissipated,  the 
feather  falls  back  to  the  tube  ;  if  the  field  of  the  tube  is 
varied,  as  it  is  by  the  hand  moving  from  one  end  of  the 
tube  to  the  other,  then  the  feather  swings  to  and  fro,  fol- 
lowing the  changes  caused. 

It  is  while  examining  the  repulsive  action  of  the  glass 
tube  that  Dufay  accidentally  notes  an  effect  which  he  says 
u  disconcerted  me  prodigiously  ;"  and  well  it  might,  for  it 
seemed  to  be  subversive  of  every  conclusion  which  he  had 
hitherto  formed  concerning  the  behavior  of  electrified 
bodies.  He  is  watching  a  bit  of  gold-leaf  float  in  the  air 
under  the  repulsion  of  his  excited  glass  tube.  It  occurs  to 
him  to  see  what  it  will  do  when  subjected  to  the  action  of 
two  electrified  bodies  ;  and  therefore  he  rubs  a  piece  of 
gum-copal  and  brings  it  to  the  leaf.  To  his  utter  astonish- 
ment the  leaf,  instead  of  retreating  from  the  electrified 
gum,  as  it  certainly  did  from  the  electrified  glass,  adheres 
to  it.  He  tries  the  experiment  again  and  again,  but  in 
every  instance  the  leaf  is  drawn  by  the  gum  or  by  amber 
or  by  Spanish  wax,  while  it  is  repelled  by  the  glass  tube. 
Yet  a  second  glass  tube  or  a  piece  of  rock  crystal  brought 
near  the  leaf  exercises  the  same  repelling  effect  as  the  orig- 
inal tube. 

This  was  Dufay's  most  important  discovery.  "I  cannot 
doubt, "  he  says,  "that  glass  and  crystal  operate  in  exactly 
the  opposite  way  to  gum-copal  and  amber ;  so  that  a  leaf 
repelled  by  the  former  because  of  the  electricity  which  it 


VITREOUS  AND  RESINOUS  ELECTRICITIES.  485 

contracted  will  be  drawn  by  the  latter.  And  this  leads  me 
to  conclude  that  there  are  perhaps  two  kinds  of  different 
electricities" 

Further  tests  confirm  the  belief,  and  he  announces  that 
electrified  glass  repels  electrified  glass,  or  all  bodies  re- 
ceiving electricity  therefrom,  and  attracts  electrified  amber 
and  all  bodies  to  which  its  charge  has  been  communicated. 
In  other  words,  he  had  established  the  fundamental  law 
that  similarly-electrified  bodies  repel,  while  dissimilarly- 
electrified  bodies  attract  one  another. 

He  calls  the  electricity  yielded  by  glass  vitreous,  and 
that  -derived  from  the  rubbed  gum  resinous /  because 
4 'glass  and  copal  are  the  two  substances  which  have  led 
me  to  the  discovery  of  the  two  different  electricities." 

Thus  Dufay  had  found  that  all  bodies  may  become  elec-* 
trie  either  by  direct  communication  or  by  induction;  that 
the  so-called  electrics  are  the  least  suitable  to  convey  the 
virtue;  that  the  electric  light  may  appear  as  fire  or  burning 
sparks,  and  that  there  are  two  different  kinds  of  electricity, 
of  which  one  attracts  bodies  repelled  by  the  other;  and 
that  bodies,  if  similarly  charged,  repel,  while  attracting  if 
dissimilarly  electrified.  These  are  only  his  more  important 
conclusions;  others,  although  ingenious  and  original,  re- 
late to  details  which  need  not  be  entered  into  here. 

In  December,  1733,  Dufay  wrote  a  brief  synopsis1  of  the 
long  memoirs  which  he  had  already  published  in  the 
annals  of  the  French  Academy,  and  sent  it  to  the  Duke 
of  Richmond  and  Lenox  for  presentation  to  the  Royal 
Society  and  (with  characteristic  diplomacy)  to  Mr.  Gray, 
"who  works  on  this  subject  with  so  much  application  and 
success,  and  to  whom  I  acknowledge  myself  indebted  for 
the  discoveries  I  have  made,  as  well  as  for  those  I  may 
possibly  make  hereafter,  since  it  is  from  his  writings  that 
I  took  the  resolution  of  applying  myself  to  this  kind  of  ex- 
periments."  Whether  in  all  the  history  of  discovery  there 
exists  a  more  handsome  recognition  than  this  of  the  work 

'Phil.  Trans.,  No.  431,  p.  258,  1733. 


486         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  a  prior  student  may  well  be  doubted.  It  is  a  custom 
which  nowadays  in  the  struggle  for  profit  is  too  often  for- 
gotten. At  all  events  Gray's  heart  was  won.  He  ceremon- 
iously salutes  Monsieur  Dufay  and  felicitates  himself  that 
his  experiments  should  have  been  confirmed  by  so  judicious 
a  philosopher;  and,  no  doubt,  in  the  quietude  of  his  little 
chamber  at  Grey  Friars,  wonders  if  it  is  really  upoor 
brother"  Gray,  with  his  experiments  with  the  tea-kettle 
and  the  pint-pot  and  the  fishing-poles  and  threads,  who  is 
receiving  these  compliments  from  the  distinguished  French 
scientist  through  the  Royal  Society  and  his  Grace  of 
Richmond. 

But  he  was  invigorated — much  invigorated.  And  be- 
sides, what  Dufay  had  said  about  the  burning  sparks 
piqued  his  curiosity  immensely.  Out  came  the  poker  and 
the  tongs,  and  the  fire  shovel,  too,  this  time,  to  be  hung 
up  on  silk  threads  and  the  crackling  sparks  produced,  of 
which  last  a  small  boy  was  made  to  suffer  the  pain,  even 
through  his  stockings.  The  next  victim  was  a  large 
white  rooster,  replaced  by  a  sirloin  of  beef,  and  finally  an 
iron  rod  astonished  him  beyond  measure  by  exhibiting  the 
true  brush  discharge,  u  rays  of  light  diverging  from  the 
point,"  and  hissing.  Pewter  plates,  iron  balls,  dishes  of 
water,  were  all  pressed  into  service.  The  flames  were  real, 
and  they  burned  and  crackled  and  exploded.  "  The  effects 
at  present,"  says  Gray,  "are  but  in  minimis,  but  in  time 
there  may  be  found  out  a  Way  to  collect  a  greater  Quan- 
tity of  it,  and  consequently  to  increase  the  force  of  this 
Electric  Fire,  which  by  several  of  these  experiments  (si 
licet  maguis  componere  parva)  seems  to  be  of  the  same 
Nature  with  that  of  Thunder  and  Lightning." 

From  that  time  on,  Gray  and  Dufay  maintained  com- 
munication with  a  degree  of  friendliness  which  leads  Fon- 
tenelle  to  wish  that  it  might  always  typify  the  intercourse 
of  the  two  great  nations  to  which  they  severally  belonged, 
and  to  add,  with  pardonable  exaggeration,  that  "they  en- 
lightened and  animated  one  another,  and  together  made 


GRAY   AND   DUFAY.  487 

discoveries  so  strange  and  surprising  that  their  respective 
beliefs  in  them  perforce  rested  solely  upon  their  mutual 
assurances."  But,  in  fact,  neither  afterwards  made  any 
especially  important  discovery.  It  was  not  long  before 
Gray  died.  He  had  wandered  off  into  the  old  belief  which 
von  Guericke  held,  that  somehow  the  planets  were  con- 
trolled by  electrical  influence,  and  he  fancied  he  could 
make  an  apparatus  in  which  a  sphere  would  of  its  own 
accord  revolve  from  west  to  east  around  an  electrified  body. 
But  he  was  stricken  unexpectedly,  and  he  could  tell  Dr. 
Mortimer,  the  Secretary  of  the  Royal  Society,  who  at- 
tended his  death-bed,  only  a  few  disjointed  ideas,  mingled 
with  expressions  of  a  hope  uthat  God  would  spare  his  life 
a  little  longer,  so  that  he  should,  from  what  these  phe- 
nomena point  out,  bring  his  electrical  experiments  to 
greater  perfection."  But  it  was  ordained  otherwise,  and 
he  passed  away  on  February  i5th,  1736. 

Dufay's  last  memoir  is  dated  in  1737,  and  expresses  his 
broadest  view  of  the  great  phenomena  which  he  had 
so  well  studied.  "Electricity,"  he  says,  "is  a  quality 
universally  expanded  in  all  the  matter  we  know,  and 
which  influences  the  mechanism  of  the  universe  far  more 
than  we  think."  He  has  left  his  monument  in  the  mag- 
nificent Jardin  des  Plantes  which  he  organized,  and  so 
made  every  student  of  Nature  his  debtor,  His  solicitude 
that  the  full  meed  of  honor  due  to  the  poor  brother  of  the 
Charter  house  should  be  yielded  never  failed;  and  when 
the  world  shall  pay  its  tribute  in  enduring  marble  and 
brass  to  the  memory  of  Stephen  Gray,  electrician,  it  will 
find  no  words  more  fitting  to  place  upon  it  than  those  of 
his  generous  and  brilliant  rival: 

uHe  was  almost  alone  in  England  in  pursuing  his  ob- 
ject. To  him  we  owe  the  most  remarkable  discoveries 
pertaining  to  it;  so  all  those  who  love  Nature  and  her 
work  must  infinitely  regret  him." 


488         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Apart  from  the  discoveries  in  which  they  resulted,  the 
researches  of  both  Gray  and  Dufay  are  remarkable  for  their 
inductive  character  and  the  absence  of  dogmatizing  on  the 
nature  and  cause  of  electricity.  Concerning  the  last, 
opinions  were  undergoing  radical  change.  Shortly  after 
Hauksbee's  experiments  were  published,  Dr.  s'Gravesande, 
Professor  of  Mathematics  at  Leyden,  issued  one  of  the 
earliest,  if  not  the  earliest,  didactic  work  in  which  elec- 
tricity is  treated  as  a  branch  of  physics,  and  there  gives  it 
as  his  ultimate  conclusion,  based  on  preceding  experi- 
ments, that  there  is  an  atmosphere  excited  in  rubbed  glass 
by  friction,  which  attracts  and  repels  light  bodies,  and  also 
that  out  of  the  glass,  fire  is  forced  ;  but  he  does  not  regard 
either  the  atmosphere  or  the  fire  as  electricity,  which  he  de- 
fines as  "that  property  of  bodies  by  which  (when  they  are 
heated  by  attrition)  they  attract  and  repel  lighter  bodies  at 
a  sensible  distance." 

The  experiments  of  Gray  and  Dufay  showed  the  light 
and  the  fire  to  be  as  much  an  electrical  phenomenon  as  the 
attraction  and  repulsion;  but  Dufay's  discovery  of  the  dual 
nature  of  electricity  had  undermined  the  old  conception  of 
material  emanations,  while  definitely  establishing  no  new 
theory  in  its  place. 

After  the  death  of  Dufay  appears  Dr.  Desaguiliers,  a 
man  of  considerable  prominence  in  the  Royal  Society.  He 
had  never  found  it  expedient  to  discourse  about  electrical 
matters  so  long  as  either  Gray,  whom  he  seems  to  have 
disliked,  or  Dufay  survived;  but  afterwards  he  contributes 
many  papers  to  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  in  which 
he  collects  a  great  mass  of  experiments,  chiefly  in  the  na- 
ture of  cumulative  evidence.  He  invented  the  term  "elec- 
trics per  se,"  which,  for  a  long  time  afterwards,  was  used 
to  designate  those  bodies  which  could  be  made  electric  by 
rubbing  them,  although  it  was  nothing  but  a  polyglot 
translation  of  Dufay's  term  "electriques  par  etix-memes." 
He  also  first  used  the  word  *'  conductor,"  applying  it  to 
the  string  over  which  the  electricity  passes,  and  also  was 


DR.    DESAGUILIERS. 


489 


the  first  to  electrify  running  water.  Gilbert,  of  course,  £ 
had  made  his  rubbed  amber  attract  a  water-drop;  the 
Florentine  Academy,  by  like  means,  had  drawn  oil  up  into 
little  viscous  strings,  and  Gray  had  electrified  soap-bubbles; 
but  Desaguiliers  found  that,  when  he  let  water  run  in  a 
stream  out  of  a  copper  fountain,  he  could  render  the  jet 
electric,  so  that  it  would  attract  thread,  by  merely  holding 
the  rubbed  tube  above  the  fountain,  and  when  he  applied 
the  tube  to  the  stream,  he  could  draw  it  sidewise  into  a 
curve,  or  even  cause  it  to  fall  outside  of  the  vessel  placed 
to  receive  it.  He  also  appears  to  have  been  the  first  to 
conceive  of  atmospheric  electricity,  and  to  point  out  that 
a  cloud  or  mass  of  vapor  may  be  an  electrified  body.  He 
had  already  recognized  that  air  may  be  rendered  electrical; 
and  supposed  it  to  be  made  up  of  electric  particles  con- 
stantly repelling  one  another.  He  imagined  that  the  air- 
current  which  flows  along  the  surface  of  the  ocean  is 
electrical  in  proportion  to  the  heat  of  the  weather,  and 
that,  as  he  had  seen  little  particles  of  water  leap  up  in 
spray  to  the  excited  tube,  so  he  conceived  the  watery  par- 
ticles of  the  sea  to  rise  to  meet  the  excited  air  particles,  and 
then,  being  of  the  same  electricity,  to  be  repelled  by  them, 
so  that  ua  cubic  inch  of  vapor  is  lighter  than  a  cubic  inch 
of  air."  In  the  recognition  by  Hauksbee  and  Wall  and 
Gray  of  the  similarity  of  the  crackling  electric  spark  to  the 
thunder  and  lightning,  and  in  this  hazy  conception  of 
Desaguiliers  of  electrically-charged  clouds  and  atmosphere, 
we  can  now  begin  to  perceive  the  drift  of  thought  leading 
toward  Franklin's  great  discovery. 


CHAPTER   XV. 

AN  assemblage  of  despotisms,  big  and  little,  engaged  in 
constant  bickerings  and  dissensions  among  themselves,  and 
involved  in  foreign  wars  which  drained  every  resource, 
formed  the  loosely-coherent  German  Empire  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  For  the  first  forty  years  of  this  period,  as 
might  well  be  expected,  German  progress  in  physical  science 
was  far  behind  that  of  England,  France  or  Italy.  Learned 
societies  had,  however,  been  established,  the  most  impor- 
tant of  which  was  the  Leopoldine  or  Collegium  Naturale 
Curiosorum,  modeled  on  the  English  Royal  Society  ;  but 
their  existence  was  precarious,  and  their  work  little  more 
than  the  gathering  and  glossing  of  the  records  of  discover- 
ies made  abroad.  The  partial  adoption  of  the  Gregorian 
calendar  by  the  Protestant  States  of  Germany  in  1700  is 
said  to  have  led  to  the  foundation  in  that  year  of  the  Berlin 
Royal  Society  of  Sciences  by  Frederick  I.  of  Prussia;  but 
the  real  motive  was  that  especially  pompous  king's  desire 
to  imitate  and  rival  Louis  XIV.  of  France. 

It  soon  became  apparent  that  to  organize  a  philosophical 
society  is  one  thing,  and  to  find  members  of  genius  for  it, 
another.  The  latter  were  manifestly  wanting.  Even  the 
gigantic  intellect  of  a  Leibnitz  in  the  Presidential  chair 
could  not  leaven  the  entire  mass.  Hence  its  existence 
remained  merely  nominal  until  1711,  when  a  solemn  open- 
ing of  its  proceedings  was  held;  and  it  started  on  what 
might  have  been  from  that  time  a  useful  career.  But  a 
couple  of  years  later,  the  sergeant  king,  who  had  less  use  for 
learned  societies  than  for  giant  grenadiers,  succeeded  to 
the  throne,  and  encouragement  failed. 

In  1715,  Weidler  of  Wittenberg,  and  Leibknecht  of  Gies- 
sen,  were  still  studying  the  mercurial  phosphorus.  The 

(490) 


ELECTRICAL  PROGRESS  IN  GERMANY.  491 

authority  of  Bernoulli!  remained  potent  against  Hauksbee's 
plain  demonstration  of  the  electrical  nature  of  the  barome- 
ter light,  although  Leupold  reconstructed  Hauksbee's 
machine,  and  verified  many  of  his  conclusions.  Little 
volumes  of  transactions  in  L,atin  printed  at  long  intervals, 
became  the  sole  sign  of  the  continued  animation  of  the  Ber- 
lin Society.  One  electrical  dissertation  here  appears  writ- 
ten by  Johan  Jacob  Schilling1  in  1734,  wherein  he  details 
experiments  made  with  the  rubbed  tube;  but  they  are  of 
minor  consequence,  and  merely  go  to  show  how  prevalent 
was  the  belief  that  the  electrical  action  resided  in  an  at- 
mosphere around  the  excited  body,  although  Schilling's 
particular  conception  of  his  atmosphere  involves  its  rare- 
faction by  the  heat  due  to  the  friction  incident  to  rubbing 
the  tube,  and  subsequent  condensation  on  cooling. 

Von  Guericke  was  famous  only  for  his  pneumatic  dis- 
coveries, fixed  in  the  popular  mind  by  his  theatrical  display 
of  the  Madgeburg  hemispheres  resisting  the  pull  of  many 
horses.  His  electrical  discoveries,  unimportant  by  con- 
trast, and  described  in  but  a  few  terse  paragraphs  in  his 
book,  were  forgotten  or  misunderstood  in  his  own  country; 
while  the  foreign  philosophers  (always  excepting  the 
liberal  and  cultured  Dufay,  whose  appreciation  of  Von 
Guericke  we  have  seen),  regarded  Germany  very  much  as 
the  British  Ikerati  looked  upon  the  United  States  seventy 
years  ago — as  a  Nazareth  whence  little  good  might  be 
expected  to  come. 

The  year  1742  probably  marks  the  beginning  of  the 
singular  and  sudden  interest  in  things  electrical  which 
arose  in  Germany,  and  which  swiftly  reached  a  stage  of 
feverish  enthusiasm.2  It  differed  widely  from  the  per- 

1  Schilling:  Misc.  Beroliniensia,  Tome  x.,  3,  4. 

2  See  Gralath  :  Geschichte  der  Elektrizitat.     Versuche  und  Abhandlun- 
gen,  der  Naturforschenden  Gesellschaft  in  Dantzig.     I.  Theil.  Dantzig, 

1747- 

Priestley  :  History  of  Electricity.     London,  1767,  and  later  editions. 

Fischer  :  Geschichte  der  Physik.  Band  V.  Gottingen,  1804.  Hoppe's 
Geschichte  der  Elektrizitat,  1884,  and  Poggendorff's  Geschichte  der 
Physik,  1879,  follow  these  works. 


492          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

functory  craze  which  had  taken  possession  of  the  English 
aristocracy  at  the  behest  of  Charles.  It  had  still  less  re- 
semblance to  the  combined  onslaught  of  the  French  phil- 
osophers which  was  designed  to  take  all  of  Nature's 
secrets  by  storm.  It  was  distinctively  popular.  It  was 
the  first  instance — many  times  since  repeated — of  the 
intelligent  portion  of  an  entire  community  regarding  with 
absorbing  wonder  the  working  of  electric  powers. 

No  unexpected  desire  for  electrical  knowledge  in  gen- 
eral had  been  born.  The  German  naturalists  were  familiar 
with  progress  abroad  during  the  last  fifty  years,  but  had 
shown  no  emulative  spirit.  The  new  motive  force  now 
came  not  from  them,  but  from  the  people;  and  the  people, 
in  all  times  and  in  all  ages,  have  never  failed  to  respond  to 
an  appeal  to  their  sense  of  the  marvelous — to  a  conviction 
that  something  new  has  been  found — something  at  once 
new  and  incomprehensible.  The  masses  had  cared  little 
for  Hauksbee's  lights,  and  less  for  the  vagrant  virtue  on 
Gray's  lines,  assuming  that  the  knowledge  of  either  per- 
colated to  them;  but  when  it  came  to  be  noised  about  that 
the  strange  radiance  which  the  English  and  French  phil- 
osophers were  exhibiting  was  fire, — fire  which  flamed  in 
jets  from  the  ends  of  rods,  or,  more  wondrous  still,  leaped 
from  the  tips  of  men's  fingers — that  was  a  matter  for  every 
one's  personal  concern.  For  fire  was  then  believed  to 
be  a  material  substance — phlogiston — and  while  perhaps 
it  might  exist  in  iron  bars  and  inanimate  things  of  that 
kind,  and  be  forced  visibly  to  come  out  of  them  by  fric- 
tion, as  well  as  by  heating,  no  one  had  ever  supposed  that 
it  resided  in  the  human  body  and  could  be  compelled  to 
escape,  with  an  accompaniment  of  sparks  and  crackles, 
from  one's  person.  It  was  the  idea  of  a  human  being 
becoming  such  a  torch  that  stirred  the  Teutonic  mind  to 
its  profoundest  depths.  The  impetus  which  electrical 
science  had  received  from  the  fancy  of  a  dissolute  king 
was  nearly  spent:  now  progress  was  resumed  with  renewed 
vigor  under  that  due  to  the  astonishment  and  wonder 


GEORGE  MATTHIAS  BOSE.  493 

which  the  latest  electrical  manifestations  had  created  in 
the  now  thoroughly  awakened  Germans. 

The  activity  of  the  German  investigators  is  not  reflected 
in  the  annals  of  the  Berlin  Academy,  but  in  a  host  of  indi- 
vidual treatises  issued  so  closely  together  in  point  of  time 
that  it  is  impracticable  to  determine,  from  their  often  con- 
tradictory statements,  the  chronological  sequence  in  which 
the  recorded  discoveries  were  made.  It  is  even  doubtful 
to  whom  is  due  the  credit  of  accomplishing  the  work  which 
began  the  new  era;  some  contemporary  writers  according 
it  to  Christian  August  Hausen,  others  to  George  Matthias 
Bose.  The  achievement  itself  involved  no  new  discovery; 
but,  in  the  light  of  its  consequences,  its  history  is  im- 
portant. 

Bose l  was  a  teacher  in  Leipsic  and  master  of  an  "exper- 
imental college."  So  slow  was  the  diffusion  of  scientific 
knowledge  at  the  time  that  the  memoirs  of  the  French 
Academy,  containing  the  account  of  Dufay's  experiments 
made  in  1733-4,  did  not  reach  him  until  three  years  later. 
He  had  already  studied  electricity  sufficiently  to  appreciate 
keenly  the  discoveries  of  the  French  scientist,  and  to  be 
eager  to  repeat  them.  No  glass  tube  of  proper  size  was 
available  in  all  L,eipsic,  and  Bose's  straitened  means  pre- 
vented his  procuring  one  from  Paris.  There  stood,  how- 
ever, in  his. laboratory  a  large  distilling  apparatus,  the 
retort  of  which  was  of  glass,  and  capable  of  holding  six  or 
seven  gallons.  Upon  the  nozzle  of  this  vessel  Bose's  eye 
fell  one  day,  and  in  an  instant  the  sacrifice  was  made,  and 
the  long-desired  tube  was  in  his  hands.  It  is  singular  that 
Dufay,  with  all  his  acumen,  should  not  have  perceived  the 
disadvantages  incident  to  the  use  of  the  tube,  which  re- 
quired constantly  renewed  rubbing,  and  worked  always 
with  diminishing  effects.  Bose's  fresher  perceptions  recog- 
nized them  quickly,  and  his  mind  at  once  recurred  to  the 
rotary  glass  globe  of  Hauksbee  and  Newton  as  a  much 
more  convenient  apparatus  for  generating  electricity.  But 

,  Tentamina  Electrica.    Wittenberg,  1744. 


494         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

he  had  no  globe,  and  saw  no  chance  of  obtaining  one,  until 
the  old  still  suddenly  revealed  itself  in  a  new  light.  There 
was  the  noseless  glass  retort;  big,  but  all  the  better  for 
that,  for  perhaps  the  effects  would  be  stronger.  Down 
came  the  vessel  to  be  mounted  lathe  fashion,  and  the  re- 
sults, as  I  shall  shortly  relate,  were  amazing. 

Meanwhile  Hausen,1  who  was  a  professor  of  mathematics 
at  the  Leipsic  Academy,  and  lectured  there  on  electricity, 
while  using  the  glass  tube  in  one  of  his  demonstrations, 
inveighed  against  its  inconvenience,  when  a  student  re- 
minded him  of  the  Hauksbee  globe.  Hausen  at  once  con- 
structed such  an  apparatus,  and,  by  means  of  a  large 
crank- wheel  and  belt,  made  it  possible  to  rotate  the  sphere 
very  rapidly.  Both  Hausen  and  Bose  now  found,  at  about 
the  same  time,  that  not  only  could  a  practically  contin- 
uous supply  of  electricity  thus  be  obtained,  but  one  of 
much  greater  strength  than  had  hitherto  been  known. 
Hausen  suspended  a  boy  with  his  toes  in  proximity  to  the 
globe,  and  drew  sparks  from  his  fingers.  Bose  disposed 
twenty  soldiers  in  line,  with  hands  touching,  and  admin- 
istered a  shock  to  all  of  them  at  once.  Hausen  remarked 
the  sulphurous  odor  of  the  electrical  discharge,  and  distin- 
guished three  kinds  of  electric  light — due  respectively  to 
the  " spark,"  the  " brush"  and  the  "glow,"  as  the  phe- 
nomena are  now  termed;  but  he  was  before  all  a  theorist. 
He  announced  that  the  electric  field  is  formed  of  vortices  of 
electric  matter,  caused  by  its  being  attracted  and  repelled  in 
oppositely  convex  curves,  that  the  vortex  becomes  a  spiral 
around  a  rubbed  tube,  and  that  all  electric  action  is  due 
to  the  influences  of  vortices  upon  vortices,  or  vortices  upon 
matter. 

In  the  light  of  modern  conceptions  Hausen Js  hypothesis 
of  the  identity  of  his  so-called  electric  matter  with  the 
ether  of  Newton  and  Huyghens  is  remarkable.  He  con- 
siders ether  to  be  electric  matter,  because  both  glow  as 
soon  as  the  proper  motion  is  impressed;  and  from  this  he 

1  Hausen:  Novi  Profectus  in  Historia  Electricitatis.     Leipsic,  1743. 


BOSK'S  EXPERIMENTS.  495 

advances  to  the  assumption  that  solidity,  fluidity,  expan- 
sibility, electric  and  magnetic  forces,  density,  light,  sound, 
heat,  etc.,  have  all  a  common  origin  in  ether  or  electric 
matter  motion.  The  drawing  of  fire  from  the  person 
shows  the  presence  of  this  same  matter,  he  maintains,  in 
the  blood ;  and  hence  it  may  be  the  seat  of  the  soul,  or  at 
least  exercise  control  of  the  sensory  faculties.  Hausen 
died  in  1743,  leaving  his  conceptions  far  from  developed 
and  his  experimental  researches  unfinished. 

Bose,  on  the  other  hand,  was  no  theorist.  His  temper- 
ament unfitted  him  for  abstract  speculation,  and  he  ex- 
pressly avoids  committing  himself  to  any  electrical  theory, 
preferring  merely  to  formulate  questions  for  others  to 
answer.  But  he  was  a  genius.  No  one  knew  better  the 
art  of  playing  to  the  gallery;  in  fact,  in  the  great  electrical 
drama  he  created  the  part  of  the  "modern  wizard,"  and  it 
is  doubtful  whether  any  one  since  has  ever  excelled  him  in 
it.  He  set  jets  of  fire  streaming  from  electrified  objects, 
and  exhibited  them  to  the  people  who  flocked  to  his  labor- 
atory. He  invited  guests  to  an  elegant  supper-table  loaded 
with  silver  and  glass  and  flowers  and  viands  of  every  de- 
scription, and,  as  they  were  about  to  regale  themselves, 
caused  them  to  stand  transfixed  with  wonder  at  the  sight 
of  flames  breaking  forth  from  the  dishes  and  the  food  and 
every  object  on  the  board.  The  table  was  insulated  on 
pitch  cakes,  and  received  the  discharge  from  the  huge 
glass  retort  which  was  revolved  in  another  room.  He  in- 
troduced his  ardent  pupils  to  a  young  woman  of  transcend- 
ent attractions,  and  as  they  advanced  to  press  her  fair 
hand,  a  spark  shot  from  it  accompanied  by  a  shock  which 
made  them  reel.  Others,  who  had  the  boldness  to  accept 
his  challenge  to  imprint  a  chaste  salute  upon  the  damsel's 
lips,  received  therefrom  a  discharge  which  Bose  says 
"broke  their  teeth;"  but  Bose  here  either  exaggerates 
more  than  usual,  or  else  neglects  to  explain  how  the  young 
lady  bore  her  share  of  the  injury. 

Meanwhile  he  had  become  professor  of  physics  at  Wit- 


496         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

tenberg  and  an  Imperial  Count  Palatine,  so  that  his  for- 
tunes had  evidently  improved.  He  was  now  certainly 
producing  the  most  powerful  electrical  discharges  that  had 
ever  been  seen,  and  popular  excitement  (and  his  own)  con- 
cerning them  was  rapidly  increasing.  His  constant  desire 
was  stronger  effects,  and  with  this  object  he  sacrificed  a 
large  telescope  in  order  to  obtain  its  metal  tube,  some 
twenty-one  feet  in  length.  When  he  brought  this  close  to 
his  revolving  globe  the.sparks  leaped  to  it  in  great  profu- 
sion, and  finally,  when  it  barely  touched  the  glass,  a  ring 
of  intense  light  appeared  at  the  place  of  contact,  while  the 
discharge  from  the  tube  itself  was  powerful  enough  to 
knock  a  dollar  from  between  his  teeth,  and  cause  a  wound 
whenever  it  was  allowed  to  strike  the  exposed  skin. 

He  had  now  added  to  the  electric  machine,  for  the  first 
time,  the  prime  conductor.  The  tube  was  first  held  to  the 
globe  by  hand,  but  afterwards  suspended  by  silk  cords.  It 
collected  the  charge  from  the  excited  glass  by  a  number 
of  threads  resting  upon  the  revolving  surface,  performing 
the  same  functions  as  the  numerous  points  of  the  collect- 
ing comb  in  the  modern  frictional  machine. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  one  of  the  discoveries  which 
Dufay  believed  possible  and  desired  to  make,  but  in  which 
he  failed,  as  he  conceived,  because  of  the  omission  of  some 
necessary  precaution,  was  the  proof  of  the  identity  of  the 
electric  spark  with  actual  fire.  Bose,  in  1743,  had  reached 
sufficient  faith  in  this  to  suggest  the  question  anew,  but 
then  announced  no  proof.  In  January  of  1744  the  reor- 
ganized Academy  of  Sciences  was  formally  opened  in  Ber- 
lin before  an  assembly  of  all  the  notabilities  of  the  king- 
dom, and  an  address  on  electricity  was  delivered  by  Dr. 
Christian  Friedrich  L,udolff,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
exhibited  the  attractive  effect  of  a  rubbed  glass  tube  upon 
water,  and  the  apparent  projection  of  the  sparks  from  the 
tube  to  the  liquid.  While  performing  this  experiment  it 
occurred  to  him  to  substitute  for  the  water  some  highly 
inflammable  fluid,  and  see  what  effect  the  sparks  flash- 


THE   ELECTRIC  SPARK   AND   FIRE. 


497 


ing  from  the  end  of  a  metal  rod  would  have  upon  it.  Ac- 
cordingly he  brought  to  the  rod  a  spoonful  of  previously- 
warmed  sulphuric  ether,  which  instantly,  to  the  amazement 
of  the  entire  assembly,  burst  into  flame.  There  could  now 
be  no  doubt  that  the  electric  spark  and  fire  were  the  same. 
The  resulting  notion  that  the  human  body  might  thus  be  a 
miniature  volcano  created  a  profound  impression,  and  pop- 
ular excitement  over  the  subject  increased.  Lectures  on 
electricity  were  in  great  demand;  exhibitions  of  electrical 
phenomena  drew  large  audiences;  even  at  the  didactic 
discourses  at  the  colleges  the  populace  flocked  to  the  halls 
and  crowded  the  students  out  of  their  seats. 

Daniel  Gralath,  writing  at  the  time,  records  electrical 
experiments  as  in  progress  in  the  palaces  of  kings  and 
princes  and  in  the  castles  of  the  great.  Meanwhile  lyii- 
dolfF  continued  his  work,  and  ignited  alcohol  and  turpen- 
tine in  the  same  way,  and  is  said  even  to  have  drawn  the 
kindling  sparks  from  pieces  of  ice  and  snow.  It  may  here 
be  noted  that  he  turned  his  attention  from  this  subject  to 
that  of  the  luminous  barometer,  and  with  his  research  ends 
even  the  German  belief  in  the  phosphorescent  character  of 
the  mercury  light,  for  he  affirms  it  positively  to  be  elec- 
trical.1 

The  news  of  L,udolff's  exhibition  drew  immediately 
from  Bose  a  claim  to  prior  discovery,  not  only  of  the  elec- 
tric ignition  of  liquids,  such  as  alcohol  and  ether,  but  of 
butter,  resin,  sealing-wax,  sulphur,  and  a  great  variety 
of  light  and  'inflammable  materials.  These,  being  pre- 
viously partly  melted,  he  set  on  fire,  not  merely  by  the 
discharge  from  rods,  but  by  the  sparks  from  men's  fingers. 
Then  he  turned  to  gunpowder,  and  succeeded  in  exploding 
it  after  getting  it  in  a  state  so  as  not  to  be  scattered  by 
the  discharge  from  the  rod.  Thus  he  made  the  first  step 
toward  the  electric  fuse,  now  a  necessity  in  every  mine, 
every  quarry,  every  fort  and  every  war-ship. 

1  Hist,  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des  Sciences  et  Belles  Lettres.  Berlin,  1746  and 
1750. 

32 


498          THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Ill  fact,  with  Bose  the  language  of  ordinary  narrative 
seems  to  have  become  inadequate  for  the  expression  of  his 
electrical  achievements ;  and  hence  he  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  Leibnitz,  who  celebrated  the  discovery  of  phos- 
phorus in  pompous  Latin  verse,  and  became  the  author  of 
the  first  of  electrical  poems.1  Its  opening  canto  is  dedi- 
cated to  Frederica  Louise,  Margravine  of  Brandenburg,  and 
it  epitomizes  other  people's  discoveries;  but  the  second 
part,  under  the  frankly  egotistical  motto,  "mine  mea  sola 
cano,"  is  entirely  devoted  to  the  celebration  of  his  own. 
By  judicious  degrees  he  proceeds  from  things  remarkable 
to  things  surprising,  reaches  the  explosion  of  powder,2  and 
then  winds  up  with  the  announcement  of  an  achievement 
calculated  to  throw  the  discoveries  of  every  one  else  com- 
pletely in  the  shade.  He  had  found  out,  he  said,  how  to 
reproduce,  around  any  one's  cranium,  the  halo  or  glory 
with  which  the  old  painters  encircled  the  heads  of  saintly 
personages.  It  was  necessary  simply  to  place  the  indi- 
vidual on  a  cake  of  pitch  and  electrify  him  from  a  large 
globe,  when  a  lambent  flame,  rising  from  the  pitch,  would 
first  spread  around  his  feet,  and  then  gradually  rise  to  his 
head,  until  the  whole  body  would  appear  bathed  in  a 
heavenly  glow  ;  or  if  he  were  seated  in  a  chair  suspended 
by  silken  ropes,  "a  continual  radiance  or  corona  of  light 
appears  encircling  his  head."3 

In  Germany  this  astonishing  claim  was  accepted,  and 
Bose  certainly  exhibited  people  with  flames  about  them. 
In  England,  however,  where  jealousy  of  both  Gallic  and 

A*  j 

!B6se:  Die  Elektrizitat,  nach  ihrer  Entdeckung  tmd  Fortgang  mit 
poetischer  feder  entworffen.  Wittenberg,  1744. 

2  "  Des  Pulvers  donnernd  Schwartz  wird  auf  zwolf  Zoll  belebt, 

Das  es  dem  Metall,  und  denen  Fingern  klebt. 

Doch  schmeltz  es.     Sieh  dich  fur.     Lass  deine  Funcken  strahlen. 

Es  fangt,  blitzt,  donnert,  ziindt,  und  knallt  zu  tausend  mahlen." 

3  "  Wie  man  die  Heiligen,  ja  selbst  die  Engel  mahlt, 

Wie  das  gemeine  Volck  von  einem  Irrwisch  prahlt, 

So  steht  mein  Held  alsdenn  in  einem  Schimmer-Glantze, 

In  einem  feurigen.  fast  fiirchterlichen  Kratitze." 


BOSK'S  EXPERIMENTS.  499 

Teutonic  achievements  was  now  beginning  to  show  itself, 
the  electricians  determined  to  test  the  matter,  and  to  that 
end,  as  Priestley  remarks,  "went  to  a  great  deal  of  ex- 
pense." Ultimately  Dr.  Watson,  of  whom  there  will  be 
much  to  say  hereafter,  procured  a  huge  cake  of  pitch, 
three  feet  high,  mounted  it  himself,  and  submitted  to 
vigorous  electrification,  with  no  better  result  than  the  cob- 
web sensation  and  a  slight  tingling  of  the  scalp.  A  sharp 
correspondence  followed  between  Watson  and  Bose,  ending 
in  the  discomfiture  of  the  latter  and  the  admission  that  his 
boasted  discovery  was  a  mere  trick  ;  the  beatification,  as  he 
called  it,  being  produced  by  dressing  the  electrified  person 
in  a  suit  of  concealed  armor  having  many  points,  at  which 
the  brush  discharge  appeared.  The  older  German  his- 
torians either  omit  this  episode  in  Bose's  career,  or  else 
treat  Bose's  claims  as  mere  u poetic  license,"  on  a  par  with 
his  offer  to  shock  an  entire  army  if  some  one  would  fur- 
nish it. 

Bose  tried  to  increase  the  strength  of  the  discharge  by 
multiplying  the  number  of  rotating  globes  in  his  machine, 
and  asserts  that  he  obtained  especially  vivid  sparks  from 
ail  apparatus  constructed  of  three  globes,  varying  in  diam- 
eter from  ten  to  eighteen  inches,  and  a  beer  glass.  By 
like  means  he  produced,  in  exhausted  vessels,  glow  dis- 
charges which  he  says,  u  flowed,  and  turned,  and  wandered 
and  flashed,"  so  that  uno  name  is  so  applicable  to  them  as 
that  of  Northern  Lights."  This  was  the  first  suggestion 
of  the  electrical  origin  of  the  Aurora  Borealis.  So  power- 
ful, says  Bose,  were  the  discharges  from  the  multiple^  obe 
machine,  that  the  blood  escaping  from  the  opened  vein  of 
an  electrified  person  appeared  " lucid  like  phosphorus,"1 
and  escaped  faster,  because  of  the  electrification.  In  fact, 
water  spouting  from  an  electrified  fountain  flowed  more 
freely  than  before.  Thus  came  to  light  the  principle  now 
embodied  in  the  Thomson  siphon-recorder  and  other  ap- 

1Phil.  Trans.,  No.  476,  p.  419,  1745. 


.500         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

paratns,  in  which  the  flow  of  ink  to  a  record  surface  is  regu- 
lated by  the  electrifying  charge. 


It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that,  despite  the  progress  which 
had  been  made  in  electrical  knowledge  since  the  time  of 
Gilbert,  no  one  had  demonstrated  any  practical  utilization 
of  it.  Of  course,  the  discoveries  made  were  the  founda- 
tion of  modern  useful  developments;  but,  at  the  period 
now  under  review,  they  had  not  been  recognized  as  meet- 
ing any  human  need.  Perhaps  it  was  enough  that  they 
should  have  freed  themselves  from  the  ancient  atmosphere 
of  mysticism  which  surrounded  all  electrical  effects,  and 
had  come  to  be  clearly  distinguished  as  purely  natural 
happenings.  From  this,  however,  came  the  noteworthy 
sequel,  that  as  popular  familiarity  with  them  increased,  so 
far  from  its  bringing  with  it  indifference  or  sated  curiosity, 
its  accompaniment  was  augmented  wonder.  And  this  in 
turn  led  to  the  query,  soon  the  demand,  whether  the  new 
force  could  not  be  made  to  do  its  part  in  the  world's  work. 
Because  those  who  ask  it  seldom  have  any  conception  how, 
or  in  what  channels,  such  utilization  is  possible,  this  ques- 
tion, in  the  beginning  of  a  new  art,  always  takes  the  form 
of  ucui  bono;"  and,  moreover,  as  it  often  bears  rather  the 
aspect  of  belittling  the  importance  or  merit  of  the  achieve- 
ment than  of  evincing  a  desire  that  it  shall  be  conclusively 
answered,  the  discoverer  is  as  likely  to  retaliate  with  such 
counter  demands  as  that  the  utility  of  mosquitoes  or  earth- 
quakes shall  first  be  explained,  as  he  is  to  adopt  Faraday's 
advice  and  silently  proceed  to  "endeavor  to  make  it  use- 
ful;" or  Franklin's  genial  philosophy  summed  up  in  the 
famous  reply  of  "What  is  the  use  of  a  baby?" 

So  when  the  Germans  had  digested  the  feast  of  marvels 
which  Bose  and  others  spread  before  them,  instead  of  glori- 
fying the  philosophers  they  manifested  an  inclination  to 
taunt  them  with  the  uselessness  of  human  fireworks,  and 
such  electrical  shows  generally.  The  man  who  answered 


JOHANN   GOTTLOB    KRUGER.  5OI 

these  flings  did  it  in  a  curious  way.  His  name  was  Johann 
Gottlob  Kriiger,  of  Halle,  a  doctor  and  professor  of  philos- 
phy  and  medicine;  and  his  medium,  an  address  delivered 
in  the  fall  of  1743,  to  his  students  who  had  asked  him 
to  explain  his  views  concerning  possible  utilizations  of 
electricity.  It  is  witty,  prophetic,  and  pre-eminently  the 
utterance  of  a  sage,  whose  philosophy  is  indicated  by  his 
epigram  that  the  philosopher's  life  consists  in  u  trying  to 
understand  what  you  do  not  see,  and  not  believing  what 
you  do. "  "What's  the  use  of  bugs,  fleas  and  grasshop- 
pers?" he  demands,  exemplifying  the  usual  resentment  of 
the  closet  student,  yet  in  the  next  breath  repeating,  "God 
only  knows  what  the  ingenious  heads  of  our  time  will  get 
out  of 'it  all."  "It  is  too  early,"  he  says,  "even  to  try  to 
venture  explanations  or  predictions."  But  he  believes — 
curious  prescience — that  the  "Germans  have  laid  the 
foundation,  the  English  will  erect  the  building,  and  the 
French  will  add  the  decorations."  And  as  to  what  utiliza- 
tions of  electricity  there  may  be  in  store,  "  if  it  must  have 
some  practical  use,  it  is  certain,  that  none  has  been  found  for 
it  in  Theology  or  Jurisprudence,  and  therefore  where  else 
can  the  use  be  than  in  Medicine?" 

Here  begin  the  modern  efforts  to  apply  electricity  to  the 
curing  of  human  ills.  Not  magnetism,  for  that,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  used  therapeutically  at  periods  of  remote  anti- 
quity; but  with  Kriiger  apparently  starts  the  idea  that 
electricity  can  be  beneficially  employed^in  the  healing  art. 

It  was  one  fraught  with  especial  difficulties  at  the  time, 
because  of  the  imperfection  of  the  electrical  machine, 
which  was  then  nothing  more  than  a  globe,  or  possibly 
two  or  three  globes,  of  glass,  seldom  provided  with  Bose's 
prime  conductor,  and  excited  by  the  contact  of  the  opera- 
tor's dry  palm.  Nevertheless,  Kriiger  urges  his  students 
to  investigate.  He  has  heard  it  rumored  that  certain  elec- 
trified bodies  will  not  decay  because  they  attract  only 
"balsamic  vapors"  from  the  air.  The  "true  human 
body,"  he  says,  "is  not  electric  of  itself,  nor  can  it  be 


502          THE  INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

made  so  by  rubbing;  but  only  by  the  approach  of  the  elec- 
tric glass;"  but  consider,  he  urges,  the  immense  value  of 
such  a  discovery  as  that  electricity  will  prevent  wasting  or 
decay  of  the  human  frame — "what  reward  would  be  too 
great  for  the  discoverer  ?' ' 

Not  only,  he  says,  does  electricity  make  blisters  on  the 
skin,  but  it  is  apparently  propagated  through  the  entire 
body.  Clearly,  therefore,  by  means  of  electricity,  changes 
can  be  caused  in  the  most  hidden  parts  of  the  frame.  L,ost 
health  may  perhaps  be  thus  restored,  or  present  health 
maintained,  if  the  application  be  made  at  the  proper  time 
and  in  the  proper  way.  Hence  does  it  not  follow  that 
electrification  is  a  new  curative  agent  ? 

He  conjectured  that  electrification  of  the  body  would 
augment  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  and  cause  contrac- 
tions of  the  solid  parts,  and  regretted  that  so  little  was 
known  on  the  subject  that  no  one  could  exactly  predict 
what  internal  bodily  changes  would  occur — a  statement 
which  can  still  be  made  with  little  qualification. 

In  the  spring  of  1744,  Christian  Gottlieb  Kratzenstein,1 
of  Halle,  made  the  first  experiments  on  the  living  body  to 
determine  the  effects  of  electricity.  He  observed  at  once 
a  marked  increase  in  the  pulse-beats,  and  the  accelerated 
circulation  predicted  by  Kriiger,  and  also  the  contractile 
and  irritating  effect  of  the  discharge  upon  the  muscles. 
Sparks  leaping  from  the  blood  running  from  the  opened 
vein  of  an  electrified  man  to  a  tin  dish  placed  to  receive 
the  flow,  added  to  the  general  conviction  that  electricity 
was  a  material  substance  in  the  body.  Kratzenstein  began 
to  administer  the  discharge  as  a  specific  for  all  congestive 
ailments — rheumatism,  malignant  fevers  and  the  plague — 
and  claimed  to  have  made  remarkable  cures  of  lameness 
and  palsy,  one  woman  with  a  lame  or  stiff  finger  being 
relieved  in  fifteen  minutes.  L,ange,2  who  followed  in 

1  Kratzenstein :  Abhandlung  von  dem  Nutzen  der  Elek.  in  der  Arznei- 
\vissenschaft.  (Gralath,  cit.  sup.,  296.) 

2Lange:  Wocheuliche  Hallische  Anzeigen,  xxiv.,  An.,  1744. 


MYSTERIOUS  SPARKLINGS.  503 

Kratzenstein's  path,  in  the  same  year  announced  that  such 
fingers  could  be  restored  so  completely  as  to  fit  them  for 
the  piano  forte.  Quelmalz 1  soon  after  evolved  a  theory 
that  electric  matter,  nervous  fluid  and  the  Newtonian 
ether,  are  all  of  the  same  nature. 

Meanwhile,  the  notion  that  fire  exists  in  the  human 
body,  capable  of  being  kindled  or  at  least  expelled  by 
electrification,  finding  a  support  in  the  opinions  of  the 
German  physicians,  began  to  spread  throughout  Europe. 
In  England,  Dr.  Henry  Miles2  at  once  associated  with  it 
the  sparkling  frock  of  Mrs.  Susanna  Sewall,  concerning 
which  Clayton  had  written  to  Boyle  from  Maryland  in 
1683,  and  exhumed  other  instances  of  mysterious  bodily 
illuminations,  notably  the  u  Mulier  Splendens,"  described 
by  Bartholinus,  of  Copenhagen,  and  the  remarkable 
lights  which  Dr.  Simpson  had  recorded  in  1675  as  aP~ 
pearing  on  the  combing  of  hair,  the  currying  of  a  horse, 
or  the  rubbing  of  a  cat's  back — an  effect  which  he  ascribed 
to  u  fermentation."  He  might  have  added  the  "miracle" 
told  by  Bacon3 — u  that  a  few  years  since  a  girl's  apron 
sparkled  when  a  little  shaken  or  rubbed,"  although  Bacon 
himself  attributed  the  light  to  the  "alum  or  other  salts 
with  which  the  apron  was  imbued,  and  which,  after  hav- 
ing been  stuck  together  and  incrusted  rather  strongly, 
were  broken  by  the  friction."  Miles  connects  such  phe- 
nomena with  Gray's  mention  of  the  great  quantity  of 
electric  effluvia  received  by  animals.  It  was  reserved, 
however,  for  Paul  Rolli,4  another  member  of  the  Royal 
Society,  to  give  the  matter  a  new  turn,  well  calculated  to 
increase  the  already-aroused  public  apprehension. 

An  Italian  treatise  of  1733,  written  by  Bianchini,  Pre- 
bendary of  Verona,  contained  an  account  of  the  sponta- 
neous combustion  of  the  Countess  Cornelia  Bandi,  who, 

1  Quelmalz:  Programma  Solemnia  Inaug.     July,  1744. 

2  Phil.  Trans.,  No.  476,  p.  441,  1745. 
8  Novum  Organum,  ii.,  xii. 

*  Phil.  Trans.,  No.  476,  p.  447,  1745. 


504         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

having  retired  one  night  in  good  health,  was  found  in  the 
morning  a  heap  of  ashes.1  To  this  he  added  other  equally 
gruesome  instances,  of  a  poor  woman  in  Paris  who,  having 
drunk  alcohol  for  years,  u  contracted  a  combustible  dispo- 
sition," and  of  a  Polish  gentleman  who,  over-indulging 
in  brandy,  exhaled  flames  and  was  consumed.  As  Miles 
had  already  linked  together  people  who  sparkled  and 
glowed  mysteriously  and  people  who  emitted  fire  when 
electrified,  it  remained  simply  for  Rolli  to  suggest  the 
connection  between  combustible  people  and  mysteriously 
sparkling  people;  and  of  the  latter,  research  in  the  ancient 
books  reveals  plenty  of  instances. 

There  is  Kusebius  Nierembergius  telling  how  all  the 
limbs  of  the  father  of  the  Emperor  Theodoric  exhibited 
lambent  luminosity,  and  Bartholinus  affirming  the  same 
of  Carlo  Gonzaga,  Duke  of  Mantua;  Licetus  asserting  that 
Antony  Cianfio,  a  bookseller  of  Pisa,  when  he  changed  his 
garments  "shone  all  over  with  great  brightness;"  Cardan 
relating  that  a  friend  of  his,  in  like  circumstances,  "shot 
forth  clear  sparkles  of  fire;"  Kircher  describing  a  Roman 
grotto  which  possessed  the  capability  of  causing  fire  to 
"evaporate"  from  the  heads  of  visitors;  Father  d'Ovale 
averring  with  equal  recklessness  the  existence  of  moun- 
tains in  Peru  on  the  summits  of  which  not  only  men,  but 
beasts,  became  luminous;  and  Castro's  story  of  the  won- 
derful arms  of  a  Veronese  countess,  which  needed  only 
the  gentle  friction  of  a  cambric  handkerchief  to  become 
resplendent. 

"These  flames,"  remarks  the  alarming  Rolli,  "seem 
harmless,  but  it  is  only  for  want  of  proper  fuel;"  and  then 
he  proceeds  to  relate  how  similar  sparkles  reduced  to  ashes 
the  hair  of  a  young  man;  depicts  graphically  the  discom- 
forts of  a  Spanish  lady  who  perspired  explosively,  and 
crowns  all  with  a  quotation  from  Albertus  Krantzius  to 
the  effect  that  in  the  time  of  the  crusades  "  people  were 

1  This  is  the  story  upon  which  Dickens  bases  the  episode  of  the  death 
of  Krook  in  Bleak  House. 


SPONTANEOUS   COMBUSTION.  505 

burning  of  invisible  fire  in  their  entrails,  and  some  had 
cut  off  a  foot  or  a  hand  where  the  burning  began  that  it 
should  not  go  further." 

Another  member  of  the  Society  supplemented  Rolli  with 
an  account  of  a  carpenter  who  was  set  on  fire  by  lightning 
and  burned  for  three  days.  Still  another  presented  a  re- 
cent instance  of  a  woman  who  ignited  spontaneously  be- 
cause of  the  gin  habit.  And  then  came  Dr.  Cromwell 
Mortimer,  directly  suggesting  the  electrical  fire  as  a  cause 
of  these  automatic  cremations.  "The  element  of  fire," 
he  says,1  "may  ...  lie  latent  in  fluid  bodies  ready  to 
become  active  as  soon  as  it  meets  with  air,  or  even  to 
kindle  if  it  meets  with  sulphureous  particles  under  proper 
conditions.  .  .  .  Animals  appearing  more  susceptible  of 
electric  fire  than  other  bodies  greatly  confirms  these  con- 
jectures of  the  phosphoreal  principles,  and  probably  being 
rendered  electric  to  any  high  degree  might  prove  a  dan- 
gerous experiment  to  a  person  habituated  to  the  use  of 
spirituous  liquors  or  to  embrocations  with  camphorated 
spirit  of  wine." 

Thus  a  new  factor  was  added  to  those  which  were  grad- 
ually bringing  both  philosophers  and  people  to  a  sort  of 
nervous  exaltation,  which  is  especially  recognizable  in  the 
exaggerated  statements  that  soon  filled  the  reports  of  the 
experiments  of  the  German  scientists.  They  seemed  to  be 
possessed  with  a  feverish  desire  to  intensify  the  strength 
of  the  discharge,  and  all  their  energies  were  directed  to 
devising,  for  this  purpose,  improvements  in  the  electrical 
machine.  "  Such  a  prodigious  power  of  electricity,  "•  says 
Priestley,  "could  they  excite  from  their  globes,  whirled 
by  a  large  wheel  and  rubbed  with  woolen  cloth  or  a  dry 
hand  .  .  .  that  if  we  may  credit  their  own  accounts  the 
blood  could  be  drawn  from  the  finger  by  an  electric  spark, 
the  skin  would  burst,  and  a  wound  appear  as  if  made  by 
caustic." 

One  result  is  that  the  records  now  become  mere  descrip- 

1  Phil.  Trans.,  No.  476,  p.  473,  1745. 


506         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tions  of  this  and  that  apparatus — mostly  experimental  and 
of  no  consequence.  Andrew  Gordon,  a  Scotch  Benedictine 
monk  and  a  teacher  in  Erfurt,  substituted  a  glass  cylinder 
for  the  glass  globe  commonly  employed.  Johann  Hein- 
rich  Winkler,  professor  of  Greek  and  L,atin  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Leipsic,  replaced  the  dry  palm  of  the  hand  with  a 
leather  cushion  rubber  adjusted  to  the  glass  by  springs, 
and  rotated  the  cylinder  by  a  cord  passing  around  its  axle 
and  connected  at  its  ends  respectively  to  a  foot  treadle  and 
an  elastic  rod.  By  this  means  he  managed  to  revolve  his 
cylinder  six  hundred  and  eighty  times  per  minute,  and 
thus  not  only  had  the  extreme  satisfaction  of  producing 
brighter  sparks  and  more  severe  shocks  than  any  of  his 
rivals,  but  of  being  able  to  do  so,  as  he  says,  in  any 
weather,  no  matter  how  damp. 

He  vied  with  Bose  in  wonder  working,  by  lighting  spir- 
its in  the  presence  of  a  large  assembly,  by  sparks  emitted 
from  "his  fingers,  and  devised  a  machine  which  he  termed 
a  u  Pirorganon,"  which  is  a  tangle  of  little  cylinders  be- 
tween which  sparks  are  supposed  to  pass,  and  to  form 
fanciful  figures  such  as  a  winged  wheel,  etc.  It  was  the 
first  attempt  to  outline  designs  in  electrical  glow.1  He 
was  of  an  inquisitive  mind,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  he  was  the  first  who  undertook  to  discover  the  speed 
with  which  electricity  travels.  At  all  events  he  suspended 
a  cord  120  feet  in  length,  which  he  considered  amply  long 
for  his  purpose,  so  that,  returning  on  itself,  the  ends  came 
within  a  few  feet  of  one  another,  got  some  one  to  hold  a 
tray  of  gold-leaf  under  one  extremity,  while  he,  fixing  his 
eyes  upon  the  gold-leaf  and  standing  electrified  upon  his 
pitch  cake,  suddenly  grasped  the  other  extremity.  "It  is 
absolutely  impossible,"  he  says  with  great  emphasis,  "to 
distinguish  any  interval  of  time  between  the  touching  of 
the  cord  and  the  instant  when  the  gold-leaf  begins  its 
movement. " 

Later,  he  devoted  himself  entirely  to  evolving  new  elec- 

il.  Trans.,  No.  493,  p.  497, 


GORDON'S  INVENTIONS.  507 

trical  theories.  He  imagined  a  subtle  electric  matter  forc- 
ing its  way  through  bodies  to  which  it  is  u  proper, "  and  in 
which  it  is  inherent,  and  evaporating  to  form  an  atmo- 
sphere around  them.  This  matter  moving  in  right  lines 
is  not  subject  to  central  forces,  runs  like  a  fluid,  and  con- 
tains particles  of  fire.  He  speculated  also  concerning  the 
elasticity  of  electricity,  but  settled  nothing;  and  in  fact 
the  more  he  theorizes  the  less  profitable  becomes  the  task 
of  summarizing  his  numerous  treatises — so  that  it  need  not 
be  further  pursued.1 

The  popular  demand  for  practical  utilizations  of  electric- 
ity was  growing  more  peremptory.  The  first  to  respond 
to  it  was  the  monk  Gordon.  It  was  Gordon  who  invented 
the  electric  bell — not  the  contrivance  now  known  by  that 
name,  but  two  gongs  and  a  metal  ball  suspended  by  silk 
lines  in  proximity  to  one  another.  The  ball,  on  being 
electrified,  moved  to  one  gong,  struck  it,  was  repelled  to 
strike  the  other,  which  again  repelled  it,  and  so  on. 
Likewise  it  was  Gordon  who  invented,  the  first  electric 
motor — curiously  enough  on  exactly  the  same  principle  as 
the  first  steam  motor — the  aelopile  of  Hero  of  Alexandria. 
It  was  a  metal  star  pivoted  at  its  center,  and  having  the 
ends  of  its  rays  slightly  turned  to  one  side,  all  in  the  same 
direction.  The  reaction  of  the  electric  discharge  at  the 
points  whirled  the  star  around  on  its  pivot,  just  as  the  steam 
turns  the  aelopile  of  Hero,  or  the  escaping  water  rotates  a 
modern*  outflow  turbine  wheel.  And  Gordon  also  first  used 
electricity  for  deadly  purposes — for  he  killed  many  a  chaf- 
finch to  show  the  power  of  the  sparks  from  his  machine. 
Nor  did  he  disdain  to  compete  in  wonders  with  the  wizard 
Bose,  for  when  the  latter  conveyed  electricity  from  one 
man  to  another  over  a  distance  of  six  feet  by  means  of  a 
jet  of  water,  Gordon  ignited  spirits  by  a  similar  electrified 
stream,  and  left  people  lost  in  astonishment  over  the  para- 
dox of  water  setting  things  on  fire. 

1Winkler:  Gedanken  von  den  Eigenschaften,  Wirkungen  und  Ur- 
sachen  der  Elektricitat,  !,eipsic,  1745;  Die  Eigenschafteu  der  Elektrischeii 
Materie,  Leipsic,  1745. 


508         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

At  about  the  same  time,  1745,  appeared  the  proposal  to 
utilize  electric  light,  made  by  Gottfried  Heinrich  Grum- 
inert,  of  Biala,  Poland,  who  claimed  to  have  found  that 
a  vacuum  tube,  after  being  set  in  glow  through  prox- 
imity to  a  powerfully  electrified  conductor,  could,  after  a 
period  of  rest,  be  made  to  glow  again  without  being  re- 
electrified — probably  by  rubbing,  as  Hauksbee  had  done 
the  same  thing.  This,  however,  he  proposed  to  use  "in 
mines  and  places  where  common  fires  and  lights  cannot  be 
had,''  so  that,  in  his  notion,  there  is  the  germ  both  of 
electric  illumination  and  the  safety  lamp.  One  other  dis- 
covery closes  the  list  of  all  that  are  worth  especially  not- 
ing among  the  many  which  fill  the  German  treatises  of 
the  day,  and  that  marks  the  first  step  in  electro-chemistry. 
Kriiger  learned  from  Hausen  of  the  sulphurous  odor  of  the 
electric  glow,  due,  as  is  now  known,  to  the  conversion  of 
the  oxygen  of  the  air  into  ozone,  and  recalling  the  bleach- 
ing power  of  sulphur,  determined  to  try  whether  electricity 
could  cause  discharge  of  color.  He  exposed  red  poppy 
leaves,  and  they  quickly  turned  white  ;  blue  and  yellow 
flowers  blanched  after  some  hours. 

While  the  activity  of  the  English  philosophers  had  not 
been  equal  to  that  of  the  Germans,  it  had  continued, 
and  Dr.  William  Watson,  apothecary  and  member  of  the 
Royal  Society,  made  the  first  of  his  remarkable  commu- 
nications to  that  body  in  the  spring  of  1745.  Watson's 
researches  of  that  year,  while  mainly  devoted  to  repetitions 
of  the  German  experiments,  were  by  no  means  barren  of 
interesting  results.  He  demonstrated  the  importance  of  the 
metallic  conductor  in  the  electrical  machine  in  collecting 
the  discharge,  and  concentrating  it  at  a  point.  He  ignited 
hydrogen  by  the  electric  spark  (the  beginning  of  electrical 
gas-lighting)  and  fired  a  musket  by  the  same  means;  but 
perhaps  his  most  important  revelation  for  the  time  was 
that  spirits  electrified  in  a  metallic  spoon  could  be  fired  by 
the  touch  of  a  non-electrified  person  just  as  well  as  an  elec- 
trified person  could  in  like  manner  ignite  non-electrified 


ELECTRICAL  FIRE.  509 

spirits.  Watson  called  the  last  an  effect  of  the  attractive 
power  of  electricity,  and  the  first  a  result  of  its  repulsive 
power,  an  arbitrary  hypothesis  which  served  temporarily 
to  satisfy  curiosity. 

But  in  the  end  the  deductions  tended  to  throw  existing 
theories  into  greater  confusion  than  ever.  Here  were  in- 
flammable substances  ignited,  not  by  sparks  emanating 
from  persons,  and  presumably  due  to  the  incorporeal  fire 
set  loose,  but  by  sparks  apparently  engendered  in  the  sub- 
stances themselves  and  proceeding  to  persons,  so  that,  by 
electrical  means,  not  only  could  fire  be  driven  out  of  one's 
body,  but  be  equally  well  driven  into  it.  The  natural 
deduction  was  that  if  fire  could  in  this  way  be  poured  into 
the  human  system,  the  less  spirituous  liquor  contained  in 
that  system  the  better,  if  people  did  not  want  to  be  con- 
verted into  involuntary  bonfires.  This  was  ^before  the  era 
of  temperance  agitation,  otherwise  the  promoters  of  the 
cause  might  thus  have  found,  ready  at  hand,  a  powerfully 
deterrent  argument;  for  if  one  sort  of  fire  would  ignite  a 
toper  another  kind  might  be  equally  efficacious,  and  a 
spark  from  one's  pipe  might  do  as  much  mischief  as  the 
flash  from  the  electrical  machine.  In  fact,  however,  it 
may  be  doubted  whether  any  one  drank  a  drop  the  less, 
despite  the  alarming  possibilities  suggested. 


The  philosophers  -of  both  England  and  Germany  had 
now  materially  improved  their  electrical  machines,  which 
were  yielding  discharges  hitherto  unrivalled  in  strength. 
The  similarity  of  the  electrical  flashes  to  lightning  was 
commonly  remarked,  and  when  Gordon  killed  birds  by 
them,  another  resemblance  to  Jove's  bolt  was  recognized. 
As  for  explanatory  theories,  sentiment  and  opinion  con- 
cerning not  only  electrical  principles,  but  regarding  the 
fundamental  doctrines  of  matter  and  force,  had  undergone 
a  great  change.  u  At  Paris,"  says  Voltaire,  referring  to 
his  visit  to  England  in  1727,  "  you  see  the  universe  com- 


510         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

posed  of  vortices  of  subtle  matter;  at  London  we  see  noth- 
ing of  the  kind.  With  you  it  is  the  pressure  of  the  moon 
which  causes  the  tides  of  the  sea;  in  England  it  is  the  sea 
which  gravitates  towards  the  moon  .  .  .  Among  you  Car- 
tesians, all  is  done  by  impulsion;  with  the  Newtonians,  it 
is  done  by  attraction  of  which  we  know  the  cause  no 
better."  In  1728,  according  to  Voltaire,  there  were  not 
twenty  Newtonians  outside  of  England.  But  now,  sixteen 
years  later,  the  mathematical  prize  questions  proposed  by 
the  French  Academy  naturally  brought  the  Cartesians  and 
Newtonians  into  conflict,  and  not  infrequently  the  Acad- 
emy impartially  divided  its  rewards  between  them.  Its 
last  act  of  homage  to  the  Cartesian  system  was  performed 
in  1740,  when  the  prize  on  the  question  of  the  tides  was 
distributed  between  Daniel  Bernouilli,  Euler,  Maclaurin 
and  Cavallieri — the  last  of  whom  endeavored  to  amend 
the  Cartesian  hypothesis  on  the  subject.  In  1744,  Daniel 
Bernouilli  declared  himself  even  more  Newtonian  than 
Newton,  for  he  expressed  belief  that  matter  may  have  been 
created  simply  through  the  law  of  universal  attraction, 
without  the  aid  of  any  gravific  medium  or  mechanism.1 

With  the  acceptance  of  the  Newtonian  doctrine  came  a 
tendency  to  imitate  the  mental  attitude  which  had  led  to  its 
conception.  The  logic  of  physical  experiment  was  now 
more  than  ever  the  final  arbiter.  Newton's  declaration 
"  hypotheses  non  fingo"  tended  to  check  the  inclination 
of  speculative  minds  to  evolve  new  electrical  theories. 
Some  like  Kriiger  and  Bose  declined  to  formulate  any, 
others  sought  to  explain  only  specific  happenings,  and 
others  offered  hypotheses  tentatively  and  in  the  inter- 
rogative form. 

It  might  well  be  imagined  that  conceptions  as  to  the  na- 
ture and  cause  of  electricity  in  such  conditions  would  soon 
become  involved  in  contradictions  and  confusion.  Wink- 
ler's  theory  that  a  solid  electrical  matter  inherent  to  bodies 
driven  always  in  right  lines  from  their  pores  by  rubbing 

1  Whewell:  History  of  the  Inductive  Sciences,  ii.,  158,  et  scq. 


ELECTRICAL  THEORIES.  511 

them,  and  forming  a  more  or  less  dense  atmosphere  about 
them,  has  little  resemblance  to  Nollet's  hypothesis  of  the 
effluence  and  affluence  of  a  subtle  universal  matter  capable 
of  self-inflammation  by  the  "shock  of  its  own  beams"; 
while  differing  radically  from  both  is  Watson's  provis- 
ional notion  that  electricity  is  a  force  analogous  to  mag- 
netism, moving  in  right  lines  and  not  subject  to  refraction, 
and  yet  "in  common  with  light,  when  its  forces  are  col- 
lected and  a  proper  direction  given  thereto  upon  a  proper 
object,  producing  fire  and  flame."  In  all  of  them,  however, 
can  be  traced  something  of  the  Newtonian  ether — of  that 
most  subtle  matter  which  Newton  described  as  pervading 
and  lying  hid  in  all  gross  bodies;  u  by  the  force  and  action 
of  which  spirit,  the  particles  of  bodies  mutually  attract  one 
another  at  small  distances  and  cohere  when  in  contact,  and 
electric  bodies  operate  at  greater  distances  as  well  as  by 
repelling  and  attracting  the  neighboring  corpuscle,  and  by 
which  light  is  emitted,"1  and  all  sensation  excited. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  a  discovery  of  the 
highest  moment,  made  by  different  observers  in  different 
places,  so  nearly  in  point  of  time  that  the  later  observation 
happened  to  gain  the  earliest  publicity,  startled  all  civil- 
ized Europe. 


In  the  fall  of  1745,  the  German  artisans,  and  especially 
those  of  Leipsic,  probably  recognized  that  the  electric  ma- 
chine had  come  into  good  market  demand.  So  simple  was 
the  apparatus,  and  so  astonishing  its  effects,  that  people 
who  made  no  pretence  to  being  scientific  bought  it  out  of 
curiosity,  and  amused  themselves  by  repeating  at  home 
the  experiments  which  the  philosophers  publicly  exhibited 
in  the  lecture  rooms  and  laboratories.  When  a  device  is 
thus  taken  to  the  popular  bosom,  so  to  speak,  the  predic- 
tion may  safely  be  hazarded  that  before  long  some  one  in 
an  unexpected  quarter  will  discover  or  invent  something 


1  Principle,  B.  iii. 


512         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

concerning  it  which  the  philosophers  have  never  thought 
of  or  completely  missed.  And  the  more  complex  the  in- 
tellectual gymnastics  of  a  certain  class  of  these  erudite  per- 
sons around  it,  the  more  certain  it  seems  to  be  that  the 
discoverer  will  be  found  to  have  solved  the  problem  either 
by  his  simple  wits  or  by  accident  and  his  wits  combined. 

It  is  not  unlikely  that  among  the  more  thoughtful  stu- 
dents of  electricity  were  some  who  did  not  look  with  favor 
upon  the  universal  effort  directed  to  the  production  of 
more  and  more  powerful  discharges.  A  maximum  sooner 
or  later  must  be  reached — possible  improvements  in  ma- 
chines must  terminate  some  time — and  then  what?  There 
was  nothing  to  show  that  the  shocks  which  shook  every 
joint  in  a  man's  body  were  capable  of  any  effects,  different 
in  kind,  from  those  which  he  could  easily  bear.  More- 
over, the  electrical  action  came  and  went  like  tl  e  light- 
ning— quicker  than  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye.  Nothing 
could  be  more  fugitive,  nothing  less  utilizable,  than  force 
exerted  under  such  conditions  as  this.  Could  it  be  im- 
prisoned? Who  would  dare  suggest  the  possibility?  Who 
would  risk  the  ridicule  sure  to  follow  the  conception  that 
the  subtle  electrical  matter  which,  whether  identified  with 
the  Newtonian  ether  or  not,  the  philosophers  agreed  to  be 
capable  of  penetrating  all  substances,  could  in  some  bonds 
be  "cabined,  cribbed,  confined?'*  Even  if  one  could  im- 
prison it,  how  was  an  explosive  emanation,  shooting  in 
right  lines  in  all  directions  and  never  moving  continuously 
in  a  definite  path,  to  be  caught?  The  attempt  would  be 
as  idle  as  trying  to  box  a  sunbeam  in  a  soap  bubble. 

It  being  now,  perhaps,  sufficiently  clear  that  not  only 
did  the  knowledge  of  the  time  offer  no  way  of  practically 
confining  or  accumulating  electricity,  but  that,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  idea  thereof  would  have  been  scouted  on  all 
sides  as  contrary  to  every  respectable  hypothesis  and  hence 
necessarily  absurd,  the  conditions  for  the  doing  of  the  thing 
were  manifestly  ripe,  and  accordingly  it  was  done. 

On  the  nth  of  October,  1745,  Dean  Von  Kleist  of  the 


VON   KLEIST'S   EXPERIMENTS.  513 

Cathedral  of  Caiuin  in  Pomerania,  completed  certain  ex- 
periments, concerning  which  on  the  following  4th  of 
November  he  felt  sufficiently  sure  to  send  an  account  of 
them  to  Dr.  Lieberkuhn  in  Berlin.  And  in  December  he 
forwarded  other  descriptions  to  Dr.  Kruger  in  Halle  and  to 
Archdeacon  Swietlicki  of  the  Church  of  St.  John  in  Dant- 
zic, and  later  to  Winkler  and  others.  Lieberkuhn1  re- 
ported the  facts  to  the  Berlin  Academy,  Kruger  printed 
the  letter  as  an  appendix  to  his  book,2  and  Swietlicki,  hav- 
ing communicated  the  intelligence  to  his  dozen  or  so  co- 
members  of  the  little  Physical  Society  of  Dantzic,  some  of 
the  latter  tested  the  matter  experimentally  and  sent  back 
word  to  Von  Kleist  that  his  apparatus  would  not  work.3 
All  of  the  others  kept  silent,  for  they  appear  to  have 
reached  the  same  conclusion.4 

Now  what  Von  Kleist  did,  according  to  his  own  story, 
is  this:  Up  to  the  present  time,  he  says,2  it  has  not  been 
recognized  that  sparks  and  streams  flow  of  themselves  out 
of  electrified  wood,  but  that  in  order  to  make  a  light  ap- 
pear, something  unelectrified  must  be  approached.  But 
all  that  is  needed  now  to  show  the  sparks  is  to  insert  a 
spool  on  which  wire  is  wound  in  a  glass  tube.  Wood  and 
tube,  however,  must  be  warm  and  dry.  If  further  an  iron 
nail  be  placed  in  the  spool,  then  the  flames  will  stream 
sometimes  frorri  the  metal  and  sometimes  from  the  wood. 
That  was  the  first  step.  The  next  was  to  place  a  nail  or  a 
wire  in  a  narrow-necked  medicine  vial — shaped  like  a 
Florentine  flask — and  to  electrify  the  nail.  Strong  action, 
he  says,  follows,  especially  if  mercury  or  alcohol  be  in  the 
vial ;  and  when  he  takes  the  vial  from  the  machine  a 
flaming  pencil  of  light  breaks  forth,  which  continues  burn- 

1  Priestley:  History  ofElec'y.     London,  1767. 

2  Kruger:  Geschichte  der  Erde.     Halle,  1746. 

3Gralath:  Nachricht  von  Einigen  Electrischen  Versuchen.  Versuche, 
etc.,  der  Naturforsclienden  Gesellschaft  in  Dantzig,  vol.  I.    Dantzic,  1747. 

4  Winkler:  Die  Starke  der  Elektrischen  Kraft  des  Wassers.     Leipsic. 
1746. 

33 


514         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

ing  while  he  walks  sixty  steps.  He  can  even  electrify  the 
apparatus,  take  it  into  another  room  and  ignite  alcohol 
with  it.  If,  while  electrified,  the  nail  be  touched  with  the 
finger,  the  resulting  shock  shakes  the  arm  and  shoulder. 
No  one  can  imagine  the  strength  of  the  shock :  that 
yielded  by  a  vial  four  inches  in  diameter  containing  liquid 
is  so  great  that  no  man  would  care  to  endure  it  a  second 
time.  It  scatters  spirits  without  igniting  them,  and  hurls 
the  spoon  from  one's  hand.  The  electrification  lasts  for 
twenty-four  hours.  Bose  would  never  dare  brave  the  kiss 
of  a  Venus  so  armed. 

This  is  Von  Kleist's  own  recital,  merely  condensed  ;  and 
so  far  it  is  Hamlet  without  the  prince.  I  have  preferred, 
however,  to  present  it  in  this  way  so  as  to  show  how  Von 
Kleist  himself  regarded  the  matter.  He  first  sees  only 
electrified  wood  which  gives  sparks  of  itself;  then  a  nail 
which  is  very  powerfully  electrified;  then  that  something 
that  is  electrified  can  be  carried  about  from  one  place  to 
another;  that  it  gives  a  flame,  ignites  alcohol,  and  delivers 
tremendously  strong  shocks  ,  and  that  it  holds  its  electrifi- 
cation for  twenty-four  hours. 

But  the  strangest  thing  of  all  he  keeps  for  the  end. 
Electrify  the  bottle  as  strongly  as  you  can,  put  it  on  the 
table,  and  touch  the  nail  or  wire  entering  it  with  the  finger, 
and  it  only  hisses.  It  cannot  then  be  got  to  kindle  spirits. 
In  fact,  none  of  these  terrible  shocks  or  bright  sparks  can 
be  got  from  it  unless  it  is  held  in  the  hand. 

Small  wonder  that  Von  Kleist  at  once  began  to  question 
what  new  capability  of  the  human  body  had  thus  come  to 
light,  and  that  this  aspect  of  the  discovery  should  have 
seemed  more  important  to  him  than  the  astounding  reve- 
lation that  electricity  could  apparently  be  bottled  for  a  day 
at  a  time.  How  it  affected  the  Dantzic  philosophers  can 
easily  be  imagined  from  the  results.  They  undoubtedly 
regarded  Von  Kleist's  warning  that  the  bottle  must  be 
held  in  the  hand  as  involving  some  delusion,  for  how 
could  hands  control  the  strength  of  any  electrical  dis- 


THE   LEYDEN  JAR.  515 

charge?  So  they  put  alcohol  and  a  wire  in  a  bottle  and 
electrified  it,  and  put  it  down  and  contemplated  it,  and  saw 
nothing,  and  wrote  to  Von  Kleist  that  his  apparatus,  what- 
ever it  was,  must  be  of  peculiar  strength,  as  theirs  would 
not  work.  And  Von  Kleist  answers  naively  that  he  has 
never  seen  any  apparatus  but  his  own,  and  hence  cannot 
draw  comparisons,  but  that  he  has  not  found  the  least 
difficulty  in  his  performances,  and  in  fact  has  made  an 
excellent  little  contrivance  out  of  a  thermometer  tube  four 
inches  long,  containing  water  and  a  wire  tipped  with  a 
lead  ball,  which  lights  spirits  satisfactorily  and  sometimes 
gives  two  discharges.  Hitherto  he  has  spoken  of  his  de- 
vice only  generally  as  a  machine;  now  he  names  it  the 
"  Electrical  Thermometer,"  a  designation  which  it  has 
never  borne.1 

The  title  which  it  has  received,  and  how  it  came  so  to 
be  known,  is  now  to  be  told.  Meanwhile  the  Dantzic 
philosophers,  with  such  new  light  as  Von  Kleist  afforded, 
returned  to  the  charge,  and  at  their  task  for  the  present  I 
leave  them. 


The  two  most  eminent  physicists  of  Holland,  during  the 

1  The  weight  of  evidence  from  all  sources  examined  is  in  favor  of  the 
foregoing  account  of  the  discovery  of  the  Leyden  jar;  but  a  passage  in 
one  of  Winkler's  treatises  (Die  Eigenschaften  der  Electrischen  Materie 
und  des  Electrischen  Feuers,  etc.,  Leipsic,  1745),  which  bears  date  the 
2oth  of  August,  1745,  and  hence  some  months  prior  to  Von  Kleist's 
formal  communication  of  his  experiment  to  Lieberkuhu  and  others, 
indicates  that  Von  Kleist  not  only  made  the  experiment  considerably 
before  this  time,  but  essayed  to  describe  it  to  Winkler.  Wiukler's  under- 
standing of  it  was  evidently  not  clear,  for  in  discussing  the  strengthening 
of  electric  sparks,  he  says  that  he  placed  iron  and  brass  tubes  of  different 
lengths  one  upon  another,  and  hung  a  large  hollow  copper  ball  from 
them,  electrifying  all  together,  and  getting  stronger  sparks  than  when  a 
single  tube  four  ells  long  was  employed.  He  then  notes  that  Von  Kleist 
has  bound  together  two  iron  rods  and  got  similar  results,  and  adds:  "The 
electrical  sparks  from  metal  were  especially  strengthened  if  the  metal 
object  were  placed  on  silk  cords  in  such  a  way  that  either  the  object 
itself  or  an  iron  rod  hanging  therefrom  reached  the  surface  of  water, 
\\hich  in  a  thin  glass  vessel  was  electrified  while  resting  upon  a  silk  net." 


516         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

period  under  review,  were  Wilhelm  Jacob  s'Gravesande 
and  Peter  Van  Musschenbroeck.  To  them  is  due  the  in- 
troduction of  experimental  philosophy  and  the  Newtonian 
doctrines  into  the  country,  and  the  establishment  of  sys- 
tematic study  of  these  subjects  in  the  University  of  L,eyden. 

s'Gravesande  was  rather  a  mathematician  than  a  physi- 
cist, and  Van  Musschenbroeck,1  who  was  originally  his 
pupil  and  protege,  became,  under  his  guidance,  a  remark- 
ably able  teacher  and  experimentalist  rather  than  an  in- 
vestigator. As  an  instructor,  it  may  be  said  without 
exaggeration,  that  kings  vied  with  one  another  for  the 
possession  of  him.  He  held  the  chair  of  philosophy  in  the 
University  of  Duisberg;  then  in  that  of  Utrecht.  From  the 
latter  Denmark  sought  to  entice  him  to  Copenhagen,  the 
English  king  to  Gottiugen,  and  the  king  of  Spain  vainly 
offered  the  tempting  salary  of  20,000  florins  per  year.  The 
simple  request  of  his  native  town  proved  more  potent  than 
all  these  allurements,  and  he  left  Utrecht  to  succeed  Wit- 
tich  as  professor  of  philosophy  in  the  L,eyden  University, 
where  he  remained  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  adding  to  the 
number  of  his  multifarious  physical  treatises,  and  attract- 
ing crowds  of  students  from  all  over  Europe,  despite  the 
dazzling  inducements  to  abandon  his  chosen  field  held  out 
by  the  king  of  Prussia  and  the  empress  of  Russia.  One 
recognizes  something  characteristically  Dutch  in  the  solid- 
ity of  attainments  and  persistent  fixity  of  purpose  which 
Van  Musschenbroeck  above  all  else  possessed,  just  as  some- 
thing typically  French  is  apparent  in  the  dazzling  abilities 
and  captivating  style  of  the  Abbe  Nollet,  whose  celebrity 
at  that  time,  in  France  at  least,  even  exceeded  that  of  the 
Leyden  professor. 

Jean  Antoine  Nollet  was  an  abbe  of  the  ancien  regime, 
not  even  ordained  a  priest,  but  assuming  a  minor  order, 
and  with  it  the  ecclesiastical  garb  and  name  of  abbe,  as 
many  another  brilliant  man  had  done,  not  for  the  sake  of 
the  vocation,  but  for  social  distinction  and  security  of  posi- 

1  Nouv.  Biographic  Generate,  37. 


ABBE;  NOLLET.  517 

tion  about  the  court,  which  otherwise  might  prove  unat- 
tainable to  the  simple  student  of  science,  letters  or  art. 
Dufay  had  been  his  preceptor,  guide  and  friend,  and  left 
him  stamped  with  his  own  charming  qualities,  to  which 
Nollet  added  an  individual  genius  for  simplifying  and  ex- 
pounding physical  science,  which  made  his  lecture-rooms 
at  Versailles  the  resort  of  the  gay  French  court;  and  this, 
not  because  he  had  become  tutor  to  Monsieur  the  Dauphin, 
nor  even  because  his  experiments  were  astonishing,  but 
because  his  talk  was  delightful  and  witty.  There  is  many 
an  old  print  representing  the  Abbe  in  his  curled  wig  and  • 
skull  cap,  with  his  black  gown  barely  concealing  the  richly- 
laced  coat  and  rapier  beneath,  daintily  conducting  Madame 
la  Marquise  to  the  electrical  machine,  where,  to  the  edifi- 
cation of  the  other  assembled  grandes  dames,  she  will  re- 
ceive, with  a  little  grimace,  a  little  shock  which  will  not 
disarrange  a  patch  on  her  face,  nor  disturb  a  fold  of  her  fur- 
belows; or,  perhaps,  inviting  Monsieur  le  Comte  to  wit- 
ness the  spirits  burst  into  flame  beneath  his  sword  point, 
or  to  laugh  at  the  overthrow,  by  the  fierce  discharge,  of 
some  stolid  serf  wearing  the  king's  uniform.  Indeed 
there  was  no  startling  experiment  of  Hauksbee,  Gray, 
Dufay  or  Bose  which  Nollet  did  not  repeat,  and  in  many 
instances  on  a  scale  greater  than  the  originator  had  ever 
attempted. 

There  was  a  great  contrast  between  this  French  philoso- 
pher of  the  salon  and  the  Dutch  philosopher  pedagogue: 
as  different  from  one  another  as  both  were  from  that  Ger- 
man "wizard"  Bose;  and  yet  alike  in  each  being  a  phil- 
osopher, which  Von  Kleist,  whose  discovery  has  contrib- 
uted so  much  to  the  immortality  of  the  memories  of  both 
of  them,  certainly  was  not. 

But,  at  the  time  when  Van  Musschenbroeck  wrote  his 
famous  letter  to  Reaumur,  which  Nollet  made  public  in 
France,  neither  writer  nor  promulgator  had  ever  heard  of 
the  Pomeranian  Dean  and  his  medicine  vial.  The  Brit- 
ish Magazine,  the  Universal  Magazine,  the  London  Maga- 


518         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 


TV  .-tf  S 


.  Brunet  fecit 


ABBE  NOLLET  EXHIBITING  GRAY'S   EXPERIMENT  OF  THE 
ELECTRIFIED  BOY.1 


1  Reproduced  in  fac  simile  from  the  frontispiece  of  Nollet's  Essai  sur 
re"lectricite*  des  corps.  Paris,  1746.  The  boy  is  suspended  on  silk  lines 
and  electrified  by  the  excited  glass  tube  held  by  the  lecturer,  so  that  his 
hand  attracts  bits  of  loose  foil  on  the  table  below. 


THE   LEYDEN  JAR.  519 

zine,  the  Gentleman's  Magazine,  even  the  Newcastle  Jour- 
nal and  the  Caledonian  Mercury,  and  perhaps  dozens  of 
other  public  prints  in  England,  were  giving  the  new  elec- 
trical discoveries  as  part  of  the  regular  news  of  the  day,  as 
fast  as  they  were  told  by  those  who  made  them ;  but  jour- 
nalistic enterprise  of  that  sort  had  not  yet  reached  the  Con- 
tinent, and  for  quick  intelligence  the  private  letter  was 
still  the  best  and  safest  medium. 

In  January,  1746  (the  Dantzic  philosophers  still  puzzling 
over  Von  Kleist's  instructions),  Musschenbroeck  wrote  to 
Reaumur  as  follows:1 

"I  wish  to  inform  you  of  a  new,  but  terrible  experiment, 
which  I  advise  you  on  no  account  personally  to  attempt. 
I  am  engaged  in  a  research  to  determine  the  strength  of 
electricity.  With  this  object  I  had  suspended  by  two  blue 
silk  threads,2  a  gun  barrel,  which  received  electricity  by 
communication  from  a  glass  globe  which  was  turned 
rapidly  on  its  axis  by  one  operator,  while  another  pressed 
his  hands  against  it.  From  the  opposite  end  of  the  gun 
barrel  hung  a  brass  wire,  the  end  of  which  entered  a  glass 
jar,  which  was  partly  full  of  water.  This  jar  I  held  in  my 
right  hand,  while  with  my  left  I  attempted  to  draw  sparks 
from  the  gun  barrel.  Suddenly  I  received  in  my  right 
hand  a  shock  of  such  violence  that  my  whole  body  was 
shaken  as  by*  a  lightning  stroke.  The  vessel,  although  of 
glass,  was  not  broken,  nor  was  the  hand  displaced  by  the 
commotion:  but  the  arm  and  body  were  affected  in  a  man- 
ner more  terrible  than  I  can  express.  In  a  word,  I  believed 
that  I  was  done  for." 

He  then  proceeds  to  say  that  the  shape  of  the  vessel  is 
unimportant,  but  that  he  believes  that  a  thin  white  glass 
five  inches  in  diameter  would  possibly  give  a  shock  strong 
enough  to  kill.  The  person  receiving  the  discharge  may 

1  Memoire  de  1' Acad.  Roy.  des  Sciences,  1746,  Paris. 

2  Gordon  imagined  that  he  discovered  that  blue  silk  threads  insulated 
better  than  any  others,  and  for  this  reason  every  one  about  this  time  was 
using  them. 


520         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

stand  on  the  floor,  and  must  either  hold  the  jar  in  one  hand 
and  excite  sparks  with  the  other,  or  he  may  place  the  jar 
on  a  piece  of  metal  on  a  table,  and  touch  the  metal  with 
his  hand,  bringing  a  finger  of  the  other  hand  to  the  wire. 
Of  course  this  experiment  is  the  same  as  that  of  Von 
Kleist,  and  goes  further,  for  it  eliminates  the  necessity  of 
supporting  the  vessel  in  the  hand,  while  making  it  clear 
that  the  seat  of  the  effect  is  not  in  the  body,  as  Von  Kleist 


THE  I<EYDEN   EXPERIMENT.1 

supposed,  and  as  the  Dantzic  philosophers  evidently  re- 
fused to  suppose,  but  in  the  apparatus,  and  that  when 
one  hand  touches  the  wire  which  enters  the  jar  (and  ex- 
tends down  into  the  water  therein),  and  the  other  hand 
touches  the  metal  plate  on  which  the  jar  rests,  a  path  for 
the  discharge  is  made  through  the  body  of  the  operator. 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  facsimile    from  Winkler's   Die   Starke   der 
Electrischen  Kraft  des  Wassers  in  glasernen  Gefassen.     Leipsic,  1746. 


THE   LEYDEN  JAR.  521 

Other  letters  from  Leyden,  especially  from  Allamand,1 
Van  Musschenbroeck's  colleague  and  assistant,  soon 
brought  further  details — for  the  Professor's  first  communi- 
cation was  evidently  written  while  he  was  still  suffering 
from  the  nervous  prostration  following  the  shock;  and  he 
was  doubtless  entirely  in  earnest  in  his  remark  that  he 
would  not  undergo  the  experience  again  for  the  Crown  of 
France;  although  he  did  do  so,  and  with  even  worse  re- 
sults than  before.  The  observation  was  made  by  acci- 
dent, Van  Musschenbroeck's  object,  some  say,  being  to 
ascertain  whether  the  charge  on  electrified  bodies  could 
be  prevented  from  dissipation  by  contact  with  water — 
others  that  he  was  examining  the  capacity  of  water  for 
receiving  and  propagating  electricity.  Allamand  avers 
that  the  shock  deprived  him  of  breath  for  some 'minutes  ; 
but  the  most  important  part  of  Allamand' s  communication 
to  Nollet  is  his  ascription  of  the  credit  of  the  actual  dis- 
covery to  one  Cunaeus,  a  scientific  amateur,  who,  he  says, 
observed  the  effects  while  repeating  at  home  certain  ex- 
periments which  Van  Musschenbroeck  and  Allamand  had 
shown  him.  The  evidence,  however,  in  support  of 
Cunseus,  is  not  only  weak,  but  in  details  contradictory, 
and  it  seems  safer  to  conclude  with  the  Abbe  de  Mangin, 
who,  in  his  history  written  contemporaneously  with  the 
event,  declares  that  the  claim  for  Cunseus  is  ua  mere 
stratagem  devised  "by  -people  envious  of  Musschenbroeck 
for  the  purpose  of  depriving  him  of  a  part  of  the  glory 
which  was  justly  due  him" — -pace,  of  course,  Von  Kleist. 
At  all  events,  whether  originating  with  Van  Musschen- 
broeck or  Cunseus,  it  is  certain  that  the  attention  of  the 
world  was  first  attracted  to  the  discovery  by  the  letter 
which  Musschenbroeck  wrote  and  Nollet  published;  and, 
as  that  information  came  from  Leyden,  the  discovery  be- 
came known  sometimes  as  the  Musschenbroeckian,  oftener 
as  the  Leyden  experiment,  while  the  contrivance  itself 

J  Mem.  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des  Sciences,  1746. 


522         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

was  called,  and  to  this  day  bears  the  name  of  the  L,eyden 
jar. 

To  return  now  to  the  Dantzic  Society,  or  rather  to 
Daniel  Gralath,  who  was  at  work  in  its  behalf.  In  Feb- 
ruary of  1746,  Von  Kleist  sent  a  final  epistle,  which  seems 
to  have  clarified  matters;  so  that  ten  days  later,  Gralath 
definitely  finds  that  the  jar  must  be  held  in  one  hand  and 
its  wire  touched  with  the  other,  and  ascribes  the  long  de- 
lay to  Von  Kleist' s  failure  to  make  this  plain  in  the 
beginning.  Gralath  soon  after  hears  of  the  Leyden  ex- 
periment, and  at  once  advocates  Von  Kleist's  claim  to  the 
discovery,  naming  the  proceeding  the  u  Kleistian  strength- 
ening experiment,"  and  the  jar,  the  "strengthening 
machine."  But  it  was  too  late — the  infant  had  already 
been  christened,  and  the  world  refused,  justly  or  unjustly, 
to  sanction  the  change  of  cognomen. 

Gralath's  experiments  were,  however,  fraught  with  new 
discovery.  In  common  with  Musschenbroeck  he  records 
the  great  power  of  the  discharge,  which  he  says  gave  some 
people  the  nose-bleed,  and  acted  like  a  lightning  stroke; 
but  announces  that  the  thinner  the  glass  of  which  the  bot- 
tle is  made,  the  stronger  are  its  effects:  that  he  has  suc- 
ceeded in  retaining  the  charge  in  it  for  three  days  (but 
here  Von  Kleist  excels  him,  for  in  his  hands  the  bottle 
worked  well  even  after  eight  days'  inaction) ;  and  that,  al- 
though the  bottle  might  seem  to  be  completely  discharged 
so  that  no  trace  of  electricity  is  manifest,  nevertheless, 
after  a  short  period  of  rest  it  once  more  yields  vivid  sparks. 

The  difficulty  which  minds  moving  in  a  rut  always  find 
in  getting  out  of  it,  is  well  exemplified  in  the  manner  in 
which  the  philosophers  dealt  with  the  new  apparatus. 
Despite  its  singular  capacities,  they  saw  in  it  only  a  con- 
trivance for  producing  shocks  stronger  than  their  machines 
would  yield,  and  bent  their  energies  to  testing  the  effects. 
Nollet  killed  birds  with  the  discharge,  noting  that  on  dis- 
section they  exhibited  the  same  condition  of  ecchymosis 
shown  by  people  struck  by  lightning.  Gralath  destroyed 


THE  FIRST  ELECTRICAL  MEASURING  INSTRUMENT.     523 

life  in  beetles  and  worms  ;  but  not  succeding  in  so  doing 
in  birds,  sought  still  further  to  intensify  the  discharge,  and 
thus  reached  the  idea  of  combining  the  effects  of  several 
jars,  which  he  placed  in  metal  pans,  with  their  lead  balls 
in  contact  with  the  prime  conductor  of  his  machine,  while 
from  each  pan  a  wire  proceeded  to  a  copper  globe  placed 
within  sparking  distance  of  the  conductor.  This  was  the 
first  grouping  of  electric  generators  in  battery,  in  which 
they  were  obviously  disposed  in  parallel,  or  multiple  arc — 
an  arrangement  which  for  some  time  was  the  only  one 
known. 

Gralath  now  killed  birds  easily,  and  reports  minutely  on 
the  physiological  changes  produced  ;  but,  as  he  saw  that 
whatever  the  effects  of  these  strong  discharges  might  be, 
no  certain  knowledge  as  to  them  could  be  obtained  unless 
their  strength  could  be  measured,  he  turned  his  efforts  to 
contriving  a  measuring  instrument.  But  he  soon  found 
the  difficulties  insuperable.  What  should  be  the  standard? 
What  the  unit?  What  was  really  to  be  measured — the  at- 
tractive power  of  the  charge,  or  the  striking  energy  of  the 
discharge  ?  He  arranged  near  a  scale-pan,  which  he  main- 
tained in  a  non-electrified  state,  an  iron  rod  which  com- 
municated with  his  machine  —  the  rod  being  adjustable 
nearer  to  or  further  from  the  scale-pan,  and  attracting  the 
latter  when  electrified.  The  attractive  force  of  the  rod 
was  counterbalanced  by  weights  in  the  opposite  pan.  His 
factors  were  the  distance  of  the  electric  machine  from  the 
apparatus,  the  distance  of  the  rod  from  the  scale-pan  and 
the  balancing  weights  ;  and  he  tabulates  his  results,  arriv- 
ing at  the  conclusion  that  with  the  rod  distant  half  an  inch 
from  the  scale-pan,  the  ratio  of  attractive  force,  when  the 
electric  machine  was  at  maximum  distance  from  the  appa- 
ratus, to  that  existing  when  the  machine  was  at  minimum 
distance  therefrom,  was  as  74  to  44  ;  and  that  this  inverted 
represented  the  relative  strengths  of  the  corresponding  dis- 
charges. He  had  no  faith  in  his  deduction,  which,  he 
says,  requires  proof  by  long  trials  and  experiment,  and 


524         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

confines  himself  to  remarking  that,  if  a  natural  law  con- 
necting attraction  and  spark  energy  should  be  established, 
his  contrivance  would  be  an  '"Electrometer,"  adapted  to 
measure  both  the  attractive  force  and  the  sparks,  and  that 
it  would  be  of  great  use,  and  free  this  branch  of  philosophy 
from  many  uncertainties.  Such  was  the  first  attempt  to 
measure  electricity,  to-day  the  most  modern  of  all  electri- 
cal arts. 

The  records  of  the  L,eyden  jar  experiments  which  now 
appear  are  devoted  more  to  graphic  descriptions  of  the 
physical  sufferings  of  over-zealous  philosophers  than  to  the 
announcement  of  new  discoveries.  Winkler  modified  the 
apparatus  by  winding  an  iron  chain  around  the  bottle,  and 
connecting  it  to  a  metal  plate  near  the  prime  conductor  of 
his  machine;  the  wire  from  within  the  bottle  also  being 
connected  to  the  same  conductor.  His  letter  to  the  Royal 
Society  recounts  his  convulsions,  the  agitation  of  his  blood, 
the  supervention  of  an  ardent  fever,  and  the  evil  result  at- 
tending the  curiosity  of  his  better-half,  who,  taking  the 
shock  a  second  time,  was  afflicted  with  nosebleed.  Nollet 
entertained  the  French  king  by  transmitting  the  discharge 
through  180  of  his  guards,  "who  were  all  so  sensible  of  it 
at  the  same  instant  that  the  surprise  caused  them  all  to 
spring  up  at  once."  This  however,  was  outdone  by  the 
performance  of  the  Carthusian  monks  in  Paris,  who  formed 
a  line  900  feet  long  u  by  means  of  iron  wires  of  propor- 
tionable length  between  every  two,  and  consequently  far 
exceeding  the  line  of  the  one  hundred  and  eighty  guards. 
The  effect  was  that  when  the  two  extremities  of  this  long- 
line  met  in  contact  with  the  electrified  vial,  the  whole 
company  at  the  same  instant  of  time  gave  a  sudden  spring, 
and  all  equally  felt  the  shock." 

It  is  not  difficult  to  understand  why  the  electrical  his- 
tories of  de  Mangin,  Secondat,  Priestley,  d'Alibard,  Gra- 
lath  and  others,  written  near  to  the  time  of  the  discov- 
ery of  the  Leyden  jar,  hail  it  as  a  great  advance,  because 
of  its  capabilities  in  the  production  of  discharges  of  unpre- 


THE   ELECTRICAL   CIRCUIT.  535 

cedented  strength.  The  writers  of  fifty  years  ago,  how- 
ever, find  in  the  supposed  storing  or  accumulating  pro- 
perties of  the  contrivance  its  chief  value,  and  for  that 
cause  assign  to  it  a  high  place  among  the  great  electrical 
inventions.  From  the  modern  point  of  view  the  historical 
importance  accorded  to  the  L,eyden  jar  or  condenser  seems 
disproportionate  when  the  relatively  minor  part  which  it 
plays  in  existing  applications  of  electricity  is  recalled;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  the  immediate  reason  for  the  great  pro- 
moting influence  which  it  exerted  upon  electrical  progress 
at  the  time  of  its  advent  is  not  found  wholly  in  the  mag- 
nifying power  and  the  accumulating  property  of  the  con- 
trivance. As  ensuing  events  soon  showed  this  influence 
rests,  and  perhaps  chiefly  rests,  upon  the  fact  that  by 
means  of  the  L,eyden  jar  came  the  first  recognition  of  an 
electrical  circuit. 

The  discharge  of  the  electric  machine,  like  that  of  the 
rubbed  glass  tube,  had  hitherto  been  delivered  from  the 
globe  either  directly  to  the  object  to  be  electrified  or  to  a 
metal  prime  conductor  (usually  a  suspended  gun  barrel), 
and  thence  to  the  object — the  latter  being  insulated  on  a 
pitch  cake  or  by  suspension  on  silk  strings.  Because  the 
Dantzic  philosophers  had  supposed  that  the  Leyden  jar 
would  act  in  the  same  way,  they  regarded  it  as  a  failure 
when,  on  being  merely  laid  on  the  table,  it  refused  to 
driver  its  spark  to  an  object  brought  near  to  it.  As 
soon,  however,  as  Gralath  and  others  understood  that  the 
charged  jar  must  rest  in  one  hand,  while  the  other  touched 
the  ball  upon  the  end  of  its  inserted  wire,  the  recognition 
of  a  circuitous  path,  to  which  the  electricity  of  the  jar  was 
confined,  was  complete.  That  path  included  both  the  jar 
and  the  human  body.  When,  for  the  holding  hand,  a 
metal  pan  in  which  the  jar  rested,  or  a  chain  enwrapping 
the  jar,  was  substituted,  communicating  by  wire  with  the 
ball,  then  the  path  became  a  metallic  circuit,  and  the  sup- 
posed influence  of  the  human  body  per  se  was  eliminated. 
In  that  path  the  electricity  seemed  to  be  present,  and  not 


526          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

elsewhere.  Here  then  was  the  electric  matter  not  only 
seemingly  shut  up  in  a  jar,  but  retained  in  a  definite  con- 
tinuous circuit. 

It  was  not  long  before  experiments  on  the  L,eyden  jar, 
due  to  mere  curiosity  to  witness  the  strength  of  the  dis- 
charge, began  to  give  place  to  more  rational  investigation. 
Then  it  became  manifest  that  a  great  change  had  taken 
place,  and  that  the  progress  of  thought  was  to  be  different 
from  ever  before.  The  field  of  research  had  suddenly 
broadened,  and  now  new  paths,  opening  in  all  directions, 
lost  themselves  in  the  mists  of  the  new  horizon.  The  old 
way  continued  onward  in  far  perspective,  but  nowhere  on 
the  shadowy  circle  was  there  a  sign  to  show  that  the  goal 
whither  it  was  believed  to  tend — the  discovery  of  the  ulti- 
mate nature  of  electricity — was  a  whit  the  nearer.  Of 
these  paths  one  led  apparently  to  the  solution  of  the 
mysteries  of  the  wonder-working  jar ;  another  to  the 
revelation  of  the  capabilities  of  the  force  confined  in  the 
circuit ;  to  the  hiding-place  of  a  potent  weapon  where- 
with to  combat  all  ills  and  diseases,  a  third  seemed 
directed;  while  a  solitary  finger-post  pointed,  not  to  the 
low-lying  fog,  but  straight  upward  to  the  clouds — upward 
to  the  very  home  of  the  lightning.  Many  such  ways 
stood  open,  but  of  them  all,  to  the  foregoing  were  appar- 
ently the  most  inviting.  Into  the  first  two  flocked  the 
electricians,  and  into  the  third  the  physicians.  The  fourth 
remained  for  awhile  untraversed,  awaiting  the  advent  of  a 
philosopher  who  just  then  was  regulating  municipal  affairs 
for  the  staid  citizens  of  far-off  Philadelphia. 

The  European  electricians  worked  assiduously.  Their 
experiments  are  legion.  The  records  especially  of  those 
devoted  to  correcting  their  own  mistakes  would  fill  huge 
volumes,  but  do  not,  thanks  to  the  mercilessly  winnowing 
rules  of  the  Royal  Society  and  the  French  Academy — 
ordinances  which  were  enforced  by  public  opinion  outside 
of  the  circles  of  those  learned  bodies  as  effectively  as 
within  them.  There  are  no  big  folios  and  massive  quartos 


NOLLET'S  EXPERIMENTS.  527 

of  the  eighteenth  century  devoted  to  electrical  treatises. 
People  who  wrote  on  electricity  were  forbidden  to  write 
sermons;  and  people  who  wrote  sermons  could  not  write 
on  electricity.  Dr.  Priestley  was  the  only  exception;  but 
even  his  ponderous  history  is  a  mere  brochure  for  the 
author  of  346  books,  mainly  theological. 

It  is  not  necessary  here  to  epitomize,  however  briefly, 
the  contents  of  the  many  little  books  which  appeared  in 
Europe  during  the  two  years  immediately  following  the 
advent  of  the  L,eyden  jar.  Some,  like  the  anonymous 
Venetian  work,1  which  begins  by  recounting  the  gallant 
adventures  of  a  pair  of  young  soldiers  in  the  charming  city 
of  the  Adriatic,  and  ends  by  making  them  listeners  to  an 
elaborate  dissertation  on  electricity  as  a  part  of  the  polite 
conversation  in  somebody's  palace,  are  quaintly  curious. 
Nollet  is  developing  more  and  more  startling  experiments 
with  what  seems  to  be  constantly  augmenting  ingenuity. 
He  turns  to  the  electric  light,  and  places  glass  flasks  ex- 
hausted of  air  directly  upon  the  metal  conductor,  which  he 
connects  by  a  chain  with  the  globe  of  his  electric  machine. 
Sometimes  the  flask  bursts  into  glow,  and  luminous 
aigrettes  shoot  from  the  metal  cap  and  stop-cock.  If  he 
brings  his  fingers  to  the  exterior  the  flames  divide  as  if  to 
meet  them.  Sometimes  a  single  powerful  stream  flows 
from  the  end' of  the  rod,  and  when  he  touches  the  latter 
with  his  finger  a  spark  leaps  forth,  and  "at  the  same  in- 
stant the  vessel  is  filled  with  so  brilliant  a  light  that  all 
objects  near  it  are  made  distinctly  visible/'  so  that  he 
adds,  enthusiastically,  u  A  more  natural  representation  of 
the  lightning  flashes  which  precede  or  accompany  thunder 
could  not  be  found." 

The  effect  of  electricity  on  vegetables  and  animals  he 
essays  to  test  by  direct  experiment.  He  plants  mustard 
seeds  in  two  receptacles,  and  maintains  one  in  an  electri- 
fied state  for  eight  days.  "The  electrified  seeds,"  he  says, 
"had  all  sprouted  at  the  end  of  that  time,  and  had  stalks 

1  Dell'  elettricismo  ossia  delle  forze  elletriche.     Venice,  1746. 


53.8 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 


fifteen  or  sixteen  lines  in  height,  while  but  two  or  three 
of  the  non-electrified  plants  bad  appeared  above  ground, 
and  even  these  had  stems  not  more  than  three  or  four 


ABBE  NOLLET'S   EXPERIMENTS   ON   ELECTRIC   LIGHT  IN   VACUUM 
FI.ASKS.1 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  fac  simile  from  Nollet's  Recherches  sur  les 
Causes  Particulieres  des  Phenome'nes  Electriques.  Paris,  1749.  The 
glass  globe  being  set  in  rapid  rotation  is  electrically  excited  by  the  pres- 
sure of  the  hands  against  it,  and  the  electrification  passes  from  globe  to 
chain  and  thence  to  the  conducting  rods,  and  exhausted  flasks. 


NOLLET'S  EXPERIMENTS. 


lines  high."  He  has  no  doubt  that  electricity  accelerates 
vegetation,  although  it  seems  to  him  that  the  plants  thus 
forced  are  not  as  hardy  as  those  which  grow  under  natural 
conditions. 


ABBE  NOLLET'S  EXPERIMENTS  IN  ELECTRIFYING   ANIMALS  AND 
VEGETABLES.1 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  fac  simile  from  Nollet's  Recherches  sur  les 
Causes  Particulieres  des  Phenome'nes  Ijlectriques.  Paris,  1749.  The 
hand  on  the  right  holds  a  vessel  of  water,  which  trickles  slowly  from  the 
spouts  turned  away  from  the  electrified  chain,  but  is  projected  in  jets 
from  those  in  proximity  thereto. 

34 


530         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISK  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

Then  he  turns  to  animals.  Two  cats,  "each  four  months 
old,  of  nearly  the  same  size,  and  fed  alike,"  are  placed  in 
cages,  one  of  them  being  near  the  conductor  of  the  electric 
machine,  which  is  excited  for  some  hours.  Both  the  elec- 
trified cat  and  the  non-electrified  cat  lose  weight,  but  the 
electrified  cat  loses  the  most,  about  54  grains.  Nollet 
thinks  this  may  be  due  to  "difference  in  temperament," 
although  he  admits  that  the  cats  went  placidly  to  sleep, 
except  when  he  gave  them  shocks.  Then  he  electrifies 
pigeons  and  small  birds,  and  finally  persons,  and  concludes 
that  in  all  cases  there  is  a  loss  in  weight  due  to  "transpira- 
tion;" but  when  he  attempts  to  treat  actual  maladies  he 
fails.  "The  paralytics,  experiencing  no  relief  which 
would  sustain  their  patience  (for  some  is  necessary  in 
order  that  they  may  undergo  this  sort  of  torture),  com- 
plained bitterly,"  and  the  Abbe  abandons  for  the  time  his 
high  hopes  of  thus  relieving  suffering  humanity. 

The  great  majority  of  experiments  now  contemporane- 
ously recorded,  however,  are  of  little  interest.  A  better 
idea  of  the  thought  and  achievement  of  this  period  can  be 
had  by  following  the  work  of  a  few  men,  whose  superior 
intelligence,  or  better  facilities,  or  both,  led  their  thought, 
for  a  short  time  only,  to  bring  forth  all  the  fruit  that  is 
worth  garnering. 

Winkler  discovered  that  when  electricity  had  several 
paths  to  choose  from,  it  appeared  to  traverse  the  one  which 
was  composed  of  the  material  which  conducted  best,  and 
that  is  all  that  need  be  said  now  about  him.  The  two 
philosophers  who  most  attract  and  hold  attention  are  rivals 
— Louis  Guillaume  Le  Monnier,  the  younger,  in  France, 
and  Dr.  William  Watson  in  England.  At  this  time  no  one 
pretended  to  understand  why  the  Leyden  jar  behaved  as  it 
did.  First,  it  could  be  electrified  by  the  ordinary  globe 
machine  or  rubbed  tube;  second,  it  yielded  an  extraordi- 
narily strong  shock  and  bright  spark;  and  third,  it  did  this 
last  only  when  its  exterior  was  connected  in  circuit  with 
its  interior.  In  entering  upon  a  new  inquiry,  it  is  often 


LE   MONNIER'' S  CIRCUIT.  531 

as  efficacious^  for  the  purpose  of  starting,  to  challenge  an 
existing  theory  as  to  propound  a  new  one.  Thus  did  Le 
Monnier.  Dufay  had  stated  in  substance  that  conductors 
cannot  be  electrified  unless  supported  on  non-conductors. 
The  Ley  den  jar,  says  L,e  Monnier,1  must  be  an  exception 
to  Dufay' s  principle,  for  it  can  be  electrified,  although  it 
is  supported  on  the  hand,  which  is  a  conductor.  That 
shows  us,  at  once,  that  L,e  Monnier — and  he  probably  re- 
flected the  idea  of  the  French  philosophers  generally — sim- 
ply considered  the  jar  as  an  electrified  mass,  regardless  of  its 
diverse  materials.  For  him  the  objective  point  is  less  the 
jar,  than  the  circuit.  He  states  the  principle  of  it:  "All 
bodies  are  electrified  by  means  of  a  vial  of  water  fitted  to 
a  wire,"  if  "placed  in  any  curved  line  connecting  the  ex- 
terior wire  and  that  part  of  the  bottle  which  is  below  the 
surface  of  the  water  " — but  passes  at  once  to  something  re- 
markable. Hitherto  everything  to  be  electrified  was  in- 
sulated on  pitch  cakes  or  silk  supports.  What  astonishes 
L,e  Monnier  now  is,  if  200  men  be  placed  hand  in  hand — 
the  end  individuals  touching  the  inserted  wire  and  the 
bottom  of  the  bottle  respectively — a  violent  concussion  is 
felt  by  all  at  once;  and  this  equally  well,  whether  they  are 
all  mounted  on  cakes  of  resin  or  stand  on  the  floor;  equally 
well  when  they  are  connected  by  iron  chains;  equally  well 
whether  the  chains  dip  in  the  water  or  lie  on  the  ground, 
and  the  electricity  runs  equally  well — now  he  abolishes  the 
men — through  a  wire  a  league  long,  "though  a  part  of  it 
dragged  on  the  wet  grass,  went  over  channel  hedge  or 
palisades  and  over  ground  newly  ploughed  up."  He  even 
bends  a  bar  of  iron  to  touch  the  two  points  of  the  jar,  and 
observes  that  it  does  not  acquire  more  electricity  when 
held  by  silk  lines  than  when  supported  in  the  hand. 
Strange,  he  thinks,  how  "the  electricity  will  stay  in  the 
path  thus  made  for  it,  without  either  running  off  or  be- 
coming absorbed." 

1  Phil.  Trans.,  No.  481,  p.  247,  290.     Memoirs  de  1'Acad.  Roy.  des  Sci., 
1746. 


532          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

There  was  an  ornamental  octagonal  pond  in  the  Tuiler- 
ies  gardens  of  those  days,  which  measured  about  an  acre 
in  extent.  Around  the  semi-circumference  of  this  Le 
Monnier  disposed  an  iron  chain  so  that  its  ends  came 
diametrically  opposite  one  another.  These  ends  were 
held  respectively  by  two  observers,  one  of  whom  dipped 
his  disengaged  hand  in  the  water.  The  other,  across  the 
basin,  held  in  his  free  hand  an  electrified  Leyden  jar,  the 
inserted  wire  of  which  he  thus  presented  to  an  iron  rod 
which  entered  the  water,  and  was  supported  on  a  cork 
float.  Thus  early  in  1746,  a  circuit  was  made  including 
both  water  and  a  metallic  conductor,  over  which  passed 
the  discharge  of  the  jar,  so  that  the  two  observers  were 
simultaneously  shocked. 

Like  other  experimenters  who  had  dealt  with  long 
conductors,  Le  Monnier  sought  to  measure  the  velocity 
with  which  the  electric  matter  ran  over  them,  but  without 
avail;  nor  was  he  any  more  successful  in  finding  out  what 
impelled  it  at  a  speed  which  he  estimates  to  be  at  least 
1 4 thirty  times  that  of  the  velocity  of  sound  in  air."  He 
made  up  his  mind,  however,  that  the  electric  matter  is 
communicated  to  bodies  in  proportion  to  their  surfaces, 
and  not  in  proportion  to  their  masses. 

The  conclusions  of  Le  Monnier  appear  to  have  been  re- 
garded by  the  English  electricians  as  a  challenge.  Wat- 
son was  now  their  leader,  and  his  response  was  ready.  Le 
Monnier  had  dealt  with  the  jar  as  a  mere  electrified  mass, 
operating  to  increase  the  shock  or  spark,  for  some  reason, 
unknown.  Watson,1  in  reply,  declares  that  it  owes  its 
capabilities  to  the  accumulation  of  electrical  matter  within 
it — this  happening  because  the  glass  acts  as  a  barrier  and 
prevents  the  electrical  matter  escaping  from  the  water  as 
it  is  supplied  thereto  by  the  inserted  wire.  We  shall  see 
changes  in  these  notions  soon.  Meanwhile,  as  for  the  rest 
of  Le  Monnier's  observations,  they  merely  prove,  says  Wat 

1  Phil.  Trans.,  No  482,  p.  388.  Watson:  Exp'ts.  and  Obs'ns.  on  Elec'y. 
3d  ed.  London,  1746. 


WATSON   ON   THE   LEYDEN  JAR.  533 

son,  "what  I  have  myself  found  out,"  that  the  electricity 
will  always  describe  the  shortest  circuit  between  the  electri- 
fied water  and  the  wire  of  the  vial  which  contains  it,  "and 
this  operation  respects  neither  fluids  nor  solids,  as  such, 
but  only  as  they  are  non-electric  (conducting)  matter. 
Thus  this  circuit,"  he  adds,  tracing  it  and  using  the  word 
to  name  the  path  provided  by  LeMonnier,  "consists  of  the 
two  observers,  the  iron  chain,  the  line  of  water  and  the 
iron  rod  in  the  floating  cork." 

Watson1  is  now  well  in  the  van.  The  German  and  the 
French  electricians,  preferring  to  follow  the  leadership  of 
Winkler  and  Nollet,  are  devoting  themselves  chiefly  to 
contriving  variations  of  experiments  already  decisive,  and 
so  to  heaping  up  a  great  mountain  of  cumulative  proof. 
Watson  shows  that  if  the  amount  of  water  in  the  jar  is  in- 
creased even  to  four  gallons,  the  stroke  is  not  augmented 
in  strength  ;  that  iron  filings  therein  answer  as  well  as 
water,  and  mercury  as  well  as  iron  filings.  The  specific 
gravity  of  the  material  in  the  jar  he  thus  discovers  has  no 
influence.  He  states  that  the  Ley  den  vial  "seems  capa- 
ble of  a  greater  degree  of  accumulation  of  electricity  than 
anything  we  are  at  present  acquainted  with  ...  by  hold- 
ing its  wire  to  the  globe  in  motion,  the  accumulation  being 
complete,  the  discharge  runs  off  from  the  point  of  the  wire 
as  a  brush  of  blue  flame." 

Watson  now,  as  the  result  of  all  his  observations,  pro- 
pounds a  theory  which  was  generally  accepted  by  the 
English  philosophers.  Historically,  and  in  the  light  of 
immediately  ensuing  events,  it  is  of  especial  importance. 

The  hypothesis  affirms   the  existence   of   an   electrical 

'Watson's  papers  of  this  period  in  Phil.  Trans,  are:  No.  478,  p.  41, 
read  February  6,  1746  ;  No,  482,  p.  388,  read  January  29,  1747  ;  No.  484, 
p.  695,  where  there  is  added  to  his  paper  of  Februry  6,  1746,  "A  Sequel 
to  the  Experiments  and  Observations,"  etc.,  read  October  30,  1746.  The 
principal  papers  were  separately  published.  Experiments  and  Observa- 
tions, 3d  Ed.,  London,  1746.  Sequel  to  Experiments  and  Observations, 
2d  Ed,,  London,  1746  :  An  acccount  of  the  experiments  made  by  some 
gentlemen  of  the  Royal  Society,  etc.  London,  1748. 


534         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

ether,  much  more  subtle  than  common  air,  and  passing  to 
a  certain  depth  through  all  known  bodies.  It  has  the 
property  of  air,  of  moving  light  objects,  and  is  likewise 
elastic,  this  last  fact  being  shown  by  its  extending  itself 
around  excited  electrics,  by  its  increasing  the  motion  of 
fluids,  by  the  apparent  influx  of  electrical  fire  to  all  bodies 
and  by  its  giving  violent  shocks  to  the  human  frame. 

With  this  ether  all  bodies  are  normally  charged.  If, 
however,  a  body  be  excited,  then  the  normal  conditions 
are  disturbed,  so  that  the  ether  in  the  nearest  unexcited 
non-electric  tends,  by  its  elasticity,  to  move  to  the  excited 
body  where  it  accumulates.  In  so  doing  it  carries  light 
bodies  with  it,  which  accounts  for  electrical  attraction. 

Applying  this  idea  to  an  electrified  Leyden  jar  held  in 
one  hand  of  an  observer,  who  touches  with  the  other  the 
metal  gun-barrel  on  which  it  is  suspended  by  its  inserted 
wire,  Watson  maintains  that,  on  the  explosion  which  fol- 
lows, the  man  (nearest  conductor)  instantly  parts  with  as 
much  fire  from  his  body  as  is  accumulated  in  the  water  of 
the  jar  and  in  the  gun  barrel;  the  fire  rushing  violently 
through  one  arm  to  the  water,  through  the  other  to  the 
barrel.  Then  as  much  fire  as  the  man  has  lost  is  imme- 
diately and  with  equal  violence  replaced  from  the  floor  of 
the  room.  Hence,  and  for  both  reasons,  the  shock.  This 
flux,  he  further  says,  may  be  prevented,  and  its  effects  are 
not  seen,  when  the  glass  containing  the  water  is  too  thick, 
or  if  the  man  stand  on  an  insulator,  or  if  the  points  of  con- 
tact between  his  (conducting)  hand  and  the  jar  which  it 
holds  are  fewer.  The  last  limitation,  it  may  be  observed 
in  passing,  proved  suggestive;  for  Dr.  Bevis,  a  member 
of  the  Royal  Society,  promptly  showed  that  the  greatest 
number  of  contact  points  would  be  obtained  by  coating  the 
exterior  of  the  jar  with  sheet  lead  or  so-called  tin  foil. 
This  suggestion  was  adopted,  as  it  was  found  that  a  person 
who  merely  touched  this  coating  with  a  small  wire  ob- 
tained as  strong  a  shock  as  if  the  whole  hand  rested  against 
the  exterior  of  the  uncoated  bottle. 


WATSON'S  ELECTRICAL  THEORY.  535 

Watson's  "  sequel "  is  dated  October  2Oth,  1746,  and  was 
read  before  the  Royal  Society  ten  days  later.  Reduced  to  a 
few  words,  his  theory  is  simply  that  the  exciting  of  an  elec- 
tric causes  the  advent  thereto  of  fire  from  the  nearest  ad- 
jacent conductor,  and  that  the  latter  regains  an  amount 
equal  to  that  lost.  "  By  asserting,"  he  adds,  "that  that 
we  have  hitherto  called  the  effluvia  does  not  proceed  from 
the  glass  or  other  electrics  per  se,  I  differ  from  Cabseus, 
Digby,  Gassendus,  Brown,  Descartes  and  the  very  great 
names  of  the  last  as  well  as  the  present  age." 

It  may  be  conceded  that  Watson  supposed  that  what  he 
calls  the  elastic  electric  ether  became  more  dense  in  one 
body  and  less  dense  in  another;  but  it  will  be  observed  that 
there  is  no  principle  of  equilibrium  here  involved.  He 
imagined  that  the  man  touching  the  charged  L,eyden  jar 
parted,  immediately  with  his  fire,  and  immediately  re- 
gained it  from  the  floor.  But  no  matter  how  highly 
charged  the  jar,  if,  according  to  Watson's  notion,  he  stood 
on  a  pitch  cake,  or  even  had  dry  soles  to  his  shoes,  the  flux 
to  him  from  the  floor  would  thereby  be  prevented,  and  the 
jar  would  give  him  no  shock — which  is  of  course  erroneous; 
for  the  man's  body,  no  matter  on  what  it  is  supported,  ob- 
viously closes  the  circuit  between  the  inside  and  outside 
of  the  jar. 

Enough  lias  now  been  stated  to  show  what  Watson's 
theory  actually  was  in  the  fall  of  1746.  I  shall  recur  to  it 
hereafter. 

The  physical  advance  accomplished  may  now  be  noted. 
Van  Musschenbroeck  had  found,  and  Watson  had  likewise 
recently  re-verified  the  fact,  that  the  thinner  the  glass  of 
the  jar  the  stronger  the  shock.  Watson  alone  had  found 
that  the  greater  the  area  of  the  conductors  in  contact  with 
the  glass,  again  the  stronger  the  shock.  Two  of  the  three 
conditions  upon  which  depend  the  capacity  of  a  condenser 
had  thus  been  discovered :  namely,  the  thinness  of  the 
dielectric  stratum  between  the  coatings,  and  the  size  of  the 
coatings  themselves.  The  third  (specific  inductive  capa- 
city of  the  dielectric)  was  still  far  in  the  future. 


536         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

So  much  for  the  jar.  Now  as  to  the  circuit.  By  mid- 
summer of  1747,  Watson  had  gained  a  comprehensive  idea 
of  the  law  of  resistance,  and  states  it  thus  : 

"  This  circuit,  where  the  non-electrics  (conducting  sub- 
stances), which  happen  to  be  between  the  outside  of  the 
vial  and  its  hook,  conduct  electricity  equally  well,  is 
always  described  in  the  shortest  route  possible  ;  but  if  they 
conduct  differently,  this  circuit  is  always  formed  through 
the  best  conductor,  how  great  soever  its  length  is,  rather 
than  through  one  which  conducts  not  so  well,  though  of 
much  less  extent,"  in  other  words,  he  had  established  and 
now  announced  that  the  resistance  of  a  conductor  to  the 
passage  of  electricity  is  proportional  to  its  length,  and, 
other  things  being  equal,  depends  upon  the  material  of 
which  it  is  composed. 


D* FRAN  KLIN. 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

THE  printer's  boy,  who  had  landed  hungry,  footsore 
and  all  but  penniless  at  the  Market  Street  wharf  in  Phila- 
delphia, after  a  hard  journey  by  both  sea  and  land  from 
Boston,  was  now,  twenty-three  years  later,  the  chief  citi- 
zen of  the  growing  town.  To  no  one  did  that  community 
then  owe  so  much  as  it  did  to  Benjamin  Franklin.1  The 
once  runaway  apprentice  had  organized  its  police,  founded 
its  school  (destined  afterwards  to  become  one  of  the  great 
universities  of  the  world)  devised  for  it  a  system  of  fire 
protection,  established  its  Philosophical  Society  and  its 
public  library  (the  first  in  the  colonies),  printed  its  books 
and  its  newspapers,  supplied  it  with  concentrated  worldly 
wisdom  in  the  maxims  of  Poor  Richard,  served  it  in  var- 
ious official  capacities,  and  invented  for  it  the  stoves  to 
which  it  still  clings.  Of  the  magnificent  services  which 
he  was  later  to  render,  not  to  his  town,  but  to  his  country, 
Franklin,  at  forty  years  of  age,  had  doubtless  no  anticipa- 
tion. The  time  seemed  to  him  near  at  hand  when  he 
might  relinquish  some  of  the  many  tasks  imposed  upon 
him — when  the  grind  of  money-getting  might  cease,  and 
when  with  the  modest  fortune  which  tireless  endeavor  and 
patient  frugality  had  brought  to  him,  he  might  turn,  not 
to  idleness,  but  to  work  which,  through  the  pleasure  it  af- 
forded, bore  no  resemblance  to  toil.  As  his  inclinations 
were  to  philosophic  study,  this  it  was  now  his  ambition 
uninterruptedly  to  pursue. 

ll  have  followed  the  autobiography  of  Franklin  as  edited  by  the  Hon. 
John  Bigelow,  in  his  fine  edition  of  Franklin's  Works,  N  Y.,  1889.  Par- 
ton's  Life  and  Times  of  Franklin,  New  York,  1864,  has  a  chapter  (vol. 
i,  c.  ix.)  devoted  to  "Franklin  and  Electricity,"  but  the  errors  in  it  are 
many.  Weems'  biography  is  chiefly  a  work  of  pure  imagination. 

(537) 


538         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

In  the  year  1746,  while  revisiting  Boston,  Franklin  met 
there  a  Doctor  Spence,  lately  arrived  from  Scotland,  who 
exhibited  to  him  some  crude  electrical  experiments. 
Spence' s  apparatus  was  meagre,  and  his  skill  small;  but 
the  subject  was  entirely  a  new  one  to  Franklin,  and  it  sur- 
prised and  delighted  him. 

Meanwhile  the  circulating  library  which  he  had  estab- 
lished several  years  before  had  attained  the  dignity  of  a 
corporation  under  a  charter  granted,  in  1742,  by  John 
Penn,  Thomas  Penn  and  Richard  Penn,  "absolute  Pro- 
prietaries of  the  Province  of  Pennsylvania  and  the  counties 
of  Newcastle,  Kent  and  Sussex  upon  the  Delaware,"  and 
was  known  as  the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia.1  As 
a  matter  of  course,  this  institution  drew  its  supply  of  books 
from  England — for  colonial  publications  were  few  and  far 
between;  and  it  was  especially  fortunate  in  possessing  in 
London,  rather  as  its  benefactor  and  friend  than  as  its 
agent,  Peter  Collinson,  a  merchant  having  extensive  busi- 
ness relations  with  the  American  colonies,  and  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Royal  Society.  Collinson  was  in  the  habit  of 
gathering,  not  only  books,  but  news  and  transmitting  the 
same  to  the  Library  Company;  and  occasionally  the  mem- 
bers of  the  latter,  in  return,  would  send  to  Collinson  ac- 
counts of  remarkable  natural  events  occurring  in  their 
vicinity.  It  was  a  common  custom  in  those  days  for  for- 
eigners and  non-members  of  the  Royal  Society  to  report 
such  happenings  or  the  results  of  their  own  new  experi- 
ments to  members,  so  that  the  latter  might  offer  them  to 
the  Society,  which,  if  it  approved,  caused  the  accounts  to 
be  published  in  the  official  transactions.  In  this  way 
for  instance,  Joseph  Breintnall,  a  member  of  the  Library 
Company,  communicated  through  Collinson  to  the  Royal 
Society,  under  date  of  Feb.  10,  1746,  his  experiences  fol- 
lowing a  rattlesnake  bite.  Collinson  himself  was  a  botan- 
ist of  high  reputation.  Through  him  a  system  of  exchange 

1 A  catalogue  of  the  books  belonging  to  the  Library  Company  of  Phila. 
1769. 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN.  539 

of  horticultural  products  was  maintained  between  England 
and  the  colonies,  and  into  the  latter1  on  his  recommenda- 
tion, the  culture  of  flax,  hemp,  the  silk-worm  and  the  wine 
»-rape  was  introduced. 

The  electrical  experiments  of  Dr.  Watson  and  his  new 
theory  accounting  for  them,  created  no  small  stir  among 
the  British  philosophers,  as  may  readily  be  imagined,  and 
in  fact  stood  unrivalled  as  a  topic  of  scientific  interest.  In 
the  fall  of  1746,  Watson  republished  his  "experiments  and 
observations"  and  also  his  sequel  thereto  in  book  form,  and 
to  the  former  added  a  preface  in  which  he  urges  the  prose- 
cution of  similar  investigations  by  others,  while  replying 
to  the  still-prevalent  cry  of  "what  is  the  use  of  it?"  * 

"It  must  be  answered,"  he  says,  uthat  we  are  not  as 
yet  so  far  advanced  in  these  discoveries  as  to  render  them 
conducive  to  the  service  of  mankind.  Perfection  in  any 
branch  of  philosophy  is  to  be  attained  but  by  slow  gradua- 
tions. It  is  our  duty  to  be  still  going  forward;  the  rest  we 
must  leave  to  the  direction  of  that  providence  which  we 
know  assuredly  has  created  nothing  in  vain.  But  I  make 
no  scruple  to  assert  that  notwithstanding  the  great  ad- 
vances which  have  been  made  in  this  part  of  natural  phil- 
osophy within  these  few  years,  many  and  great  properties 
remain  undiscovered.  Future  philosophers  (some  perhaps 
even  of  the  present  age)  may  deduce  from  electrical  experi- 
ments uses  entirely  beneficial  to  society  in  general." 
Furthermore,  in  order  to  show  with  what  facility  such  re- 
search can  be  conducted,  he  states  that  his  experiments 
"were  all  made  with  glass  tubes  about  two  foot  long,  the 
bore  about  an  inch  in  diameter,"  and  gives  some  simple 
directions  as  to  warming  and  drying  the  tube  before  rub- 
bing it. 

Watson's  books  were  sent  over  to  the  Library  Company 
by  Collinson,  together  with  such  a  tube  as  Watson  de- 

1  Stephen:  A  Dict'y  of  Nat'l  Biography.     London,  1887,  vol.  xi. 

2  Watson:  Experiments  and  Observations.     London,  1746. 
Watson:  Sequel  to  Experiments  and  Observations.     London,  1746. 


540         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

scribes,  probably  very  soon  after  the  reading  of  Watson's 
sequel  to  the  Royal  Society  in  October,  1746.  He  added 
directions  for  using  the  glass.  Franklin,  being  already 
interested,  eagerly  seized  the  opportunity  of  repeating  the 
experiments  which  he  had  seen  in  Boston;  and  then,  as  he 
gained  skill,  performed  those  described  in  Watson's 
pamphlets.  The  attention  of  his  friends  to  whom  he  ex- 
hibited these  wonders  became  enlisted  to  such  a  degree, 
and  the  news  of  them  spread  so  widely,  that  before  long, 
his  house  was  continually  filled  with  curiosity  seekers. 
As  he  had  no  fancy  for  indefinitely  repeating  these  per- 
formances merely  as  a  show,  and  a  very  decided  one  for 
pressing  ahead  to  discover  new  marvels,  he  presented  sev- 
eral tubes  which  he  had  caused  to  be  blown  at  the  glass 
house  to  his  friends,  and  invited  them  to  "divide  a  little 
this  incumbrance  with  him."  The  advice  given  by 
Watson  doubtless  acted  as  a  spur  to  others  as  well  as  to 
Franklin;  but  instead  of  each  pursuing  his  own  researches, 
those  most  interested  came  together,  and  before  long,  a 
quartette  composed  of  Franklin,  Ebenezer  Kinnersley, 
Thomas  Hopkinson  and  Philip  Sing  united  their  efforts. 
If  Kinnersley  was  not  Franklin's  equal,  in  point  of  scien- 
tific knowledge  and  experimental  ability,  he  ranked  but 
little  below  him.  He  had  been  educated  in  England,  and 
had  emigrated  to  Philadelphia,  where  he  was  eking  out  a 
rather  precarious  existence  teaching  school,  at  the  time  he 
became  Franklin's  coadjutor.  The  letters  of  Franklin  to 
Collinson  bear  frequent  testimony  to  his  ingenuity,  and  as 
will  hereafter  be  seen,  he  played  no  inconsiderable  part  in 
spreading  knowledge  of  the  new  science  throughout  the 
colonies.  Hopkinson  was  the  first  president  of  the  Ameri- 
can Philosophical  Society,  and  Sing  was  one  of  its  mem- 
bers. These  four  men  were  the  u  we"  to  whom  Franklin 
alludes  in  his  early  letters  as  directly  participating  in  the 
u Philadelphian  experiments." 
By  the  latter  part  of  March,  I747,1  Franklin,  having  be- 

1  Experiments  and  Observations  on  Electricity  made  at  Philadelphia,  in 


FRANKLIN   ON   POINTED   CONDUCTORS.  541 

come  satisfied  that  his  colleagues  and  himself  had  made 
some  really  new  discoveries,  wrote,  under  date  of  the  28th 
instant,  to  Collinson,  so  advising  him  and  expressing  the 
intention  of  soon  sending  him  an  account  of  them ;  adding 
that  he  "never  was  before  engaged  in  any  study  that  so 
totally  engrossed  my  attention  and  my  time  as  this  has 
lately  done,"  and  that,  during  some  months  past,  he  has 
had  " little  leisure  for  anything  else." 

On  July  n,  1747,  Franklin  fulfills  his  promise,  and  the 
story  is  told  to  Collinson  of  the  first  electrical  discoveries 
made  in  America.  Immediately — at  the  very  threshold — 
is  foreshadowed  the  great  achievement  which  left  Frank- 
lin's name  immortal.  The  initial  announcement  refers  to 
u  the  wonderful  effect  of  pointed  bodies  both  in  drawing 
off  and  throwing  off  the  electrical  fire." 

It  was  no  novelty  to  electrify  pointed  conductors.  Von 
Guericke  had  done  so,  and  Gray  and  Dufay  and  the  Ger- 
mans. Hauksbee  had  seen  the  glow  at  his  finger-tips. 
The  fire  hissing  from  the  ends  of  iron  rods  is  abundantly 
pictured  in  the  old  engravings  of  the  apparatus  ofWinkler 
and  Nollet  and  Watson.  But  that  was  not  the  achieve- 
ment which  Franklin  relates. 

He  electrified  a  small  cannon  ball,  and  suspended  a  bit 
of  cork  near  to  it  by  a  silk  string.  The  cork,  after  touch- 
ing the  ball,  was  repelled  to  a  few  inches'  distance  and 
maintained  in  that  position.  When  he  brought  the  point 
of  a  steel  bodkin,  held  in  his  hand,  in  the  vicinity  of  the 
ball,  however,  the  cork  fell  back  against  the  ball  and  was 
co  longer  repelled  by  it.  The  little  metal  rod  thus  seemed 
to  conduct  the  electric  atmosphere  away  from  the  iron:  to 
draw  it  off,  as  Franklin  says. 

There  is  no  doubt  in  Franklin's  mind  as  to  the  part 
taken  by  the  sharpened  end  of  the  rod.  In  the  dark,  a 
light  gathers  around  it  like  that  of  a  fire-fly  or  glow-worm; 

America,  by  Benjamin  Franklin,  LL.  D.,  and  F.  R.  S.  The  fifth  ed., 
London,  1774.  A  list  of  the  various  editions  of  Franklin's  electrical 
papers  will  be  found  in  Mr.  P.  L.  Ford's  Bibliography  of  Franklin. 


542          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN    ELECTRICITY 

but  if  the  extremity  be  blunt,  then  the  light  is  not  seen 
unless  it  be  brought  very  near  to  the  globe. 

The  circumstances  surrounding  this  attack  upon  the 
problems  of  electricity  were  novel.  In  Europe  men  had 
become  skillful  electricians,  apparatus  had  been  brought 
to  a  condition  of  refinement,  and  the  keenest  philosophical 
minds  had  seemingly  exhausted  their  powers  in  proposing 
explanatory  theories.  Every  investigator  of  electricity 
worked  under  the  potent  influence  of  this  highly-developed 
environment. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  colonies  there  was  virtually 
no  environment  at  all  in  any  wise  corresponding  in  charac- 
ter. The  knowledge  of  past  achievement  possessed  by 
Franklin  and  his  colleagues  was  probably  all  drawn  from 
Watson's  pamphlets,  Collinson's  brief  letters  and  Spence's 
crude  experiments.  And  this  was  perhaps  fortunate,  for 
had  they  been  better  posted,  they  would  probably  have 
deemed  impracticable,  in  the  beginning,  efforts  which 
ultimately  ended  in  success.  They  seem  to  have  copied 
nothing  from  European  sources — not  even  the  electrical 
machine,  which  they  re-invented.  The  tubes  which  Frank- 
lin caused  to  be  made  at  the  glass  house  were  of  common 
green  glass,  thirty  inches  long  and  as  large  as  could  be 
grasped  in  the  hand.  Rubbing  them  with  buckskin,  as 
he  says,  was  fatiguing  exercise;  and  it  was  for  greater  con- 
venience that  Philip  Sing  made  the  glass  into  a  globe,  and 
taking  the  hint  from  his  grindstone,  gave  it  an  axle  and 
crank. 

Not  being  aware  of  the  multitude  of  earlier  theories,  and 
unable  to  reconcile  Watson's  hypothesis  with  the  showing 
of  experiment,  it  was  inevitable  that  the  Philadelphia  ex- 
perimenters should  seek  for  themselves  some  other  explan- 
ation of  the  strange  and  novel  effects  before  them.  Thus 
came  into  existence,  at  the  very  outset  of  their  research, 
the  Franklinian  theory,  and  it  is  first  announced  in  the 
same  letter  to  Collinson  in  which  is  described  the  u  draw- 
ing off"  action  of  the  pointed  rod.  It  gained  a  wider  ac- 


FRANKLIN'S  THEORY  OF  ELECTRICITY.          543 

ceptance  than  any  electrical  hypothesis  hitherto  proposed. 
It  may  almost  be  said  to  have  become  the  world's  theory, 
and  to  have  retained  a  certain  ascendency  even  to  the  pres- 
ent time;  for  it  is  the  most  easily  thinkable  of  all  to  the 
non-mathematical  mind.  There  is  probably  no  electrical 
fluid  running  along  conductors  and  accumulating  like 
water  in  a  tank;  but  that  idea  of  it  is  imbedded  in  the  lan- 
guage and  in  every-day  thought,  and  the  hydraulic  analo- 
gies maintain  the  vitality  of  the  conception.  Indeed, 
whether  the  time  will  ever  come  when  the  world  will  cease 
to  imagine  electricity  as  an  actual  fluid,  may  well  be 
doubted. 

The  theory  which  Franklin  announced  assumed  the 
electrical  fire  to  exist  in  all  bodies  as  a  common  stock.  If 
a  body  acquired  more  than  its  normal  amount,  he  termed 
it  "plus"  or  positively  electrified.  If  it  lost  some  of  its 
normal  amount,  he  regarded  its  condition  as  "minus"  or 
negatively  electrified.  The  common  stock  of  electrical  fire 
in  all  bodies  he  held  to  be  in  a  state  of  equilibrium,  and 
into  this  common  stock  the  fire  from  a  positively  or  over- 
electrified  body  will  flow,  while  from  the  common  stock 
the  fire  will  flow  to  a  negatively  or  under-electrified  body. 
Thus,  imagine,  says  Franklin,  three  persons,  each  having 
his  normal  equal  share  of  electrical  fire.  u  A,  who  stands 
on  wax  and  rubs  the  tube,  collects  the  electrical  fire  from 
himself  into  the  glass;  and  his  communication  with  the 
common  stock  being  cut  off  by  the  wax,  his  body  is  not 
again  immediately  supplied.  B  (who  stands  on  wax  like- 
wise), passing  his  knuckle  along  near  the  tube,  receives  the 
fire  which  was  collected  by  the  glass  from  A;  and  his  com- 
munication with  the  common  stock  being  likewise  cut  off, 
he  retains  the  additional  quantity  received.  To  C  stand- 
ing on  the  floor,  both  appear  to  be  electrified;  for  he  hav- 
ing only  the  middle  quantity  of  electrical  fire,  receives  a 
spark  upon  approaching  B,  who  has  an  over  quantity;  but 
gives  one  to  A,  who  has  an  under  quantity.  If  A  and  B 
approach  to  touch  each  other  the  spark  is  stronger,  because 


544 


THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 


the  difference  between  them  is  greater.  After  such  touch 
there  is  no  spark  between  either  of  them  and  C,  because 
the  electrical  fire  is  reduced  to  the  original  quantity.  If 
they  touch  while  electrizing,  the  equality  is  never  de- 
stroyed, the  fire  only  circulating."  B  therefore  is  posi- 
tively or  plus  electrified,  and  A  negatively  or  minus. 

The  fire  may  be  circulated,  says  Franklin,  and  "you 
may  also  accumulate  or  subtract  it  upon  or  from  any  body 
as  you  connect  that  body  with  the  rubber  or  with  the  re- 
ceiver (tube),  the  communication  with  the  common  stock 
being  cut  off." 

Franklin's  chief  concepts,  therefore,  are  first,  the  normal 
state  of  equilibrium  of  the  common  stock  of  electrical  fire 
in  all  bodies;  second,  that  this  equilibrium  may  be  dis- 
turbed, so  that  a  body,  by  reason  of  the  disturbing  action, 
may  have  fire  given  to  it  or  taken  away  from  it;  and  third, 
that,  after  the  disturbing  action  ceases,  the  reaction  is 
transference  of  the  fire  back  to  the  original  state  of  equi- 
librium.  The  fluid  analogy  readily  suggests  itself.  The 
common  stock  of  electrical  fire  may  be  represented  by  the 
atmosphere.  If  air  be  accumulated  above  atmospheric 
pressure  in  a  vessel,  it  will  escape  therefrom  into  the 
aerial  ocean  until  the  pressure  without  and  within  the  ves- 
sel is  equalized.  If  air  be  exhausted  from  a  vessel,  the 
atmosphere  from  without  will  rush  into  that  vessel  agaii 
until  the  pressure  outside  and  the  pressure  inside  are  th< 
same. 

The  staid  people  of  Philadelphia,  however,  do  not  flock 
to  Franklin's  house  to  listen  to  his  theories,  but  to  witness 
his  experiments;  and,  indeed,  he  and  his  colleagues  are 
as  alive  to  the  marvelous  aspect  of  it  all  as  Bose  himself. 
The  electrical  fire  leaps  "like  lightning,"  writes  Franklin, 
around  the  gilt  ornaments  on  china  plates,  or  on  the  sides 
of  books,  or  around  the  mirror  and  picture  frames.  Philip 
Sing  contrives  little  pasteboard  wheels  which  are  driven 
like  wind-mills  when  brought  near  the  rubbed  tube. 
Franklin  lights  candles  just  blown  out,  by  drawing  a  spark 


FRANKLIN'S  LEYDEN  JAR  EXPERIMENTS.         545 

amidst  the  smoke  between  the  wire  of  the  Leyden  vial 
and  the  snuffers.  By  the  ai'd  of  the  vial  he  u  increases 
the  force  of  the  electrical  kiss  vastly,"  and  even  the  cork 
ball,  vibrating  like  the  end  of  Guericke's  thread,  between 
the  Leyd'en  jar  and  a  conductor  near  by,  is  blackened  and 
given  legs  of  linen  thread,  to  make  it  into  a  counterfeit 
spider  which  appears,  to  quote  the  genial  philosopher  once 
more,  " perfectly  alive  to  persons  unacquainted."  The 
words  are  almost  identical  with  those  which  Porta,  nearly 
two  centuries  earlier,  had  used  to  describe  the  strange 
behavior  of  the  iron  filings  in  the  magnet  field,  and  the 
astonishment  which  their  movements  created  among  the 
bystanders. 

Two  months  later,  Franklin  sends  Collinson  a  second 
letter,  in  which  he  describes  the  Leyden  jar  as  electrified 
positively  within  and  negatively  without,  and  marvels 
that  these  two  states  of  electricity — the  plus  and  minus — 
should  be  "combined  and  balanced  in  this  miraculous 
bottle  !  situated  and  related  to  each  other  in  a  manner  that 
I  can  by  no  means  comprehend!"  He  also  connects  his 
plus  and  minus  theory  with  the  phenomena  of  attraction 
and  repulsion,  by  stating  that  "when  a  body  is  electrified 
plus  it  will  repel  a  positively  electrified  feather  or  small 
cork  ball.  When  minus  (or  when  in  the  common  state)  it 
will  attract  them,  but  stronger  when  minus  than  when  in 
the  common  state,  the  difference  being  greater." 

This  is  all  hypothetical;  yet  it  leads,  through  Franklin's 
conviction  that  the  equilibrium  of  the  bottle  is  restored  by 
exterior  communication  between  its  inside  and  outside,  to 
a  discovery  of  great  moment,  though  he  himself  never 
lived  to  realize  its  importance. 

Here  is  the  experiment.  A  wire  is  fastened  to  the  lead 
coating  of  the  jar  and  extends  upwards  so  as  to  stand 
parallel  to  the  wire  which  enters  the  jar.  A  cork,  sus- 
pended on  a  silk  thread,  is  placed  between  these  wires,  and 
the  jar  is  electrified  and  placed  on  wax.  Then,  says 
Franklin,  the  cork  "will  play  incessantly  from  one  (wire) 
35 


546         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

to  the  other  'till  the  bottle  is  no  longer  electrified;  that  is, 
it  fetches  fire  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  (inside  to  outside) 
of  the  bottle  'till  the  equilibrium  is  restored."1 

Never  before  has  the  electrical  fire  shown  itself  in  the 
circuit  other  than  as  a  spark,  a  shock,  an  explosion,  in- 
stantaneous "with  a  violence  and  quickness  inexpressible." 
Now  Franklin  is  effecting  this  restoration  of  equilibrium 
slowly.  He  is  breaking  up  the  explosion,  so  to  speak,  into 
a  great  many  little  successive  explosions.  A  very  small 
amount  of  the  fire  passing  from  wire  to  ball  is  enough  to 
electrify  the  latter,  so  that  the  wire  will  repel  it.  It 
swings  over  to  the  opposite  wire,  to  which  it  delivers  its 
charge,  and  swings  back  again.  And  thus  it  may  go  on 
vibrating  to  and  fro,  until  it  has  ferried  over  all  the  fire 
which  disturbs  the  electrical  equilibrium  between  the  out- 
side of  the  jar  and  the  inside.  With  this  experiment  (com- 
monly cited  as  illustrating  "electrical  convection  ")  begins 
the  evolution  of  the  electric  current;  the  forging  of  the  liuk 
between  the  Leyden  jar  and  the  voltaic  cell. 

The  state  of  political  affairs  in  Philadelphia  when  this 
second  letter  was  written  (September,  1747)  had  become 
critical.  Trouble  had  arisen,  several  years  before,  between 
England  and  Spain,  as  to  the  right  to  gather  salt  at  Tor- 
tugas  and  cut  logwood  at  Cam  peachy.  Volunteers  had 
been  raised  in  Pennsylvania  for  an  invasion  of  Cuba,  but 
the  colony  would  not  take  any  measures  to  put  itself  in  a 
state  of  defense,  even  when  war  had  broken  out,  not  only 
with  Spain,  but  with  France  also.  The  Quakers  of  Phila- 
delphia, in  pursuance  of  their  peculiar  tenets,  would 
neither  fight  themselves,  nor  openly  provide  means  for 
others  to  fight.2  On  the  day  following  that  on  which 
Franklin's  first  letter  to  Collinson  is  dated,  a  French  priva- 
teer, anchored  off  Cape  May,  and  her  crew  plundered  houses 
within  twenty  miles  of  Philadelphia.  Still  the  Quakers 
refused  to  provide  any  means  of  defense.  Shortly  after- 

1  See  Fig.  II.  of  Franklin's  illustration  on  page  561. 
2McMaster:  Benjamin  Franklin  as  a  man  of  Letters,  N.  Y.,  1887. 


BENJAMIN   FRANKLIN.  547 

wards  another  French  privateer  sailed  up  the  Delaware,  and 
within  a  fortnight  Spanish  privateers  followed.  The  city 
was  terror-stricken,  but  the  assembly  remained  obdurate 
and  would  provide  neither  men  nor  money,  arms  nor  forts. 
The  result  was  that  Franklin  stopped  making  electrical 
experiments,  wrote  "Plain  Truth,"  a  pamphlet  which  de- 
picted the  horrors  of  war  in  a  way  that  mightily  stirred  up 
the  people;  raised  money;  built  a  battery  and  organized  a 
regiment.  Fortunately  no  occasion  rose  for  testing  the 
efficiency  of  the  safeguards,  for  the  war  was  ended  by  the 
treaty  of  Aix-la-Chapelle  in  October,  1748. 

Franklin  now  definitely  determined  to  retire  from  busi- 
ness and  devote  himself  to  the  study  of  electricity.  He 
sold  his  newspaper,  almanac  and  printing-house  to  David 
Hall.  The  sum  thus  realized,  added  to  the  fortune  which 
he  had  amassed,  and  the  revenue  derived  from  places 
which  he  held  under  the  crown  and  the  colony,  gave  him 
abundant  resources  to  enable  him  to  live  the  life  he  most 
desired,  and  which  he  described  as  "leisure  to  read,  study, 
make  experiments  and  converse  at  large  with  such  ingen- 
ious and  worthy  men  as  are  pleased  to  honor  me  with  their 
friendship  or  acquaintance."  Meanwhile  he  had  pur- 
chased the  apparatus  which  Dr.  Spence  had  imported,  and 
had  added  some  better  instruments  which  the  Proprietaries 
had  sent  over  from  London.  Thus  well  equipped  and 
relieved  from  all  pressing  cares,  Franklin  renewed  his 
researches;  and  at  this  task  I  leave  him,  in  order  to  note 
the  progress  which  in  the  interim  the  European  philoso- 
phers had  made,  and  the  reception  which  his  plus  and 
minus  theory  encountered  in  England. 

Watson's  hypothesis  prevailed  in  Great  Britain.  On  the 
continent,  where  international  animosities  had  full  play, 
there  was  confusion.  "As  the  French  say,"  writes  a 
member  of  the  Royal  Society  in  the  fall  of  I746,1  "there 

JPhil.  Trans.,  No.  481,  p.  247. 


54?         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

are  so-many  of  what  they  term  "bizarreries,"  or  unaccount- 
able phenomena  in  the  course  of  electrical  experiments, 
that  a  man  can  scarce  assert  anything  in  consequence  of 
any  experiment  which  is  not  contradicted  by  some  unex- 
pected occurrence  in  another;"  and  the  same  correspondent 
quotes  the  famous  naturalist  De  Buffon  as  saying,  that  the 
whole  subject  of  electricity  is  "  not  yet  sufficiently  ripe  for 
the  establishment  of  a  course  of  laws,  or  indeed  of  any  cer- 
tain one,  fixed  and  determinate  in  all  its  circumstances," 
which  is  significant  in  view  of  the  persistence  with  which 
Abbe  Nollet  was  advocating  his  favorite  effluence  doctrine, 
to  which  allusion  has  already  been  made. 

I/emonnier  had  (probably  in  Watson's  eyes)  committed 
the  indiscretion  of  announcing  discoveries  which  Watson 
insisted  he  himself  had  in  petto.  The  natural  philosopher 
while  sometimes,  like  other  humanity,  apt  to  indulge  in 
the  wish,  "Pereant  male  qui  ante  nos  nostra  dixissent,"1 
has  a  better  method  of  self  assertion,  at  hand  which  has 
the  merit  of  being  useful.  It  consists  simply  in  making 
additional  experiments,  which,  even  if  they  go  to  sup- 
port the  discovery  of  one's  rival,  completely  eclipse,  by 
their  magnitude  or  striking  character,  those  on  which  the 
latter  has  rested  his  conclusions.  There  is  much  sagacity 
in  this,  because  human  nature  is  very  apt  to  link  the  great 
results  to  the  great  object  lessons,  and  not  to  the  little 
ones,  especially  after  time  has  befogged  the  chronology. 
Thus  did  Watson,  with  respect  to  Lemon nier;  in  dealing 
with  Franklin,  as  we  shall  see  later,  he  adopted  a  different 
course,  equally  favorable  to  himself,  and  equally  tinctured 
with  worldly  wisdom. 

'Less  sententiously,  but  perhaps  as  well  said  in  Chevalier  D'Aceilly's 
version : 

"Dis-je  quelque  chose  assez  belle 
L; antiquite"  tout  en  cervelle 
Pretend  1  avoir  dite  avant  moi, 
Ce"st  une  plaisante  donzelle! 
Que  ne  venait-elle  apres  moi  ? 
J'aurais  dit  la  chose  avant  elle!  " 


WATSON'S  ELECTRICAL  CIRCUIT.  549 

Lemonnier  had  apparently  caused  electricity  to  traverse 
the  pond  in  the  Tuileries  gardens.  This  Watson  deter- 
mined to  outdo;  and,  not  without  some  misgivings,  pre- 
pared to  make  the  "commotion,"  as  he  calls  it,  felt  across 
the  River  Thames.  With  the  aid  of  several  members  of  the 
Royal  Society  he  laid  a  wire  along  Westminster  Bridge — a 
distance  of  some  twelve  hundred  feet — and  carried  its  ends 
to  the  water  edge.  On  the  Westminster  side  of  the  river 
one  of  the  company  held  the  wife  in  his  left  hand  and 
touched  the  water  with  an  iron  rod  held  in  his  right.  On 
the  Surrey  side,  a  second  person  held  the  extremity  of  the 
wire  in  his  right  hand  and  a  charged  Leyden  jar  in  his  left 
— the  ball  of  the  jar  being  touched  by  a  third  observer, 
who  also  grasped  an  iron  rod  dipping  into  the  river.  All 
three  individuals  felt  a  smart  shock  the  instant  the  circuit 
was  closed,  and  alcohol  on  one  bank  of  the  stream  was 
fired  by  electricity  discharged  on  the  other. 

This  experiment,  which  was  repeated  with  various 
changes  in  detail,  was  made  in  July,  1747.  Martin  Folkes, 
then  president  of  the  Royal  Society,  the  Earl  of  Stanhope, 
and  other  distinguished  persons,  took  part  in  it ;  and 
this  alone  would  have  attracted  public  attention  even  if 
the  results  had  not  been  of  such  great  philosophical  inter- 
est. Watson,  however,  cared  nothing  for  the  sensational 
or  popular  side  of  the  achievement.  The  observation 
which  seemed  to  him  of  most  importance  was  the  great 
advantage  which  wire,  as  a  conductor,  possesses  over  chain 
— for  "the  junctures  of  the  chain  not  being  sufficiently 
close  .  .  .  caused  the  electricity  in  its  passage  to  snap  and 
flash  at  the  junctures  where  there  was  the  least  separation, 
and  these  lesser  snappings  in  the  whole  length  of  the 
chain  lessened  the  great  one  at  the  gun  barrel,"  which 
formed  a  terminus  of  the  line.  This  suggested  to  him 
the  possibility  of  sending  the  discharge  over  circuits  of 
wire  and  water  even  greater  than  2400  feet  in  length; 
so  he  changed  the  scene  of  his  operations  to  Stoke-New- 
ington,  where  the  windings  of  the  New  River  gave  him 


550         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

(although  the  two  extreme  points  were  distant,  in  a  straight 
line,  but  2800  feet)  a  water  course  nearly  8000  feet  in 
length.  Here  a  wire,  from  the  outer  coating  of  a  Leyden 
jar,  disposed  in  the  window  of  a  house  overlooking  the 
river,  was  led  over  the  meadows  to  the  distant  point, 
where,  as  before,  an  observer  held  its  end  in  one  hand, 
and  established  communication  with  the  water  with  the 
other.  A  second  wire  from  the  window  went  directly  to 
the  river,  so  that  it  was  necessary  merely  to  bring  the 
house  end  of  this  wire  to  the  ball  of  the  jar  to  discharge 
the  latter.  The  experiment  was  successful — but  a  new 
question  arose  from  it,  because  it  had  been  noticed  that 
the  u  commotion  "  traveled  over  the  circuit  even  when  the 
distant  end  of  the  wire  did  not  communicate  with  the 
water  but  with  the  land,  touching  the  earth  at  a  distance 
of  even  twenty  feet  from  the  stream.  Was  the  electrical 
circuit  formed  throughout  the  windings  of  the  river,  or 
by  way  of  the  much  shorter  path  through  the  meadows? 
Tests  showed  that  the  meadow-earth  would  conduct,  and 
this  was  supposed  to  be  due  to  its  damp  condition.  At  all 
events,  thought  Watson,  the  matter  must  be  tested.  So 
observers,  at  the  ends  of  a  wire  about  500  feet  long,  were 
insulated  on  pitch  cakes  and  told  to  touch  the  ground 
with  their  iron  rods.  The  shocks  from  ajar  in  the  circuit 
were  felt  smartly  by  both.  That,  and  similar  trials,  settled 
the  matter  of  the  feasibility  of  making  the  earth  a  part 
of  the  circuit,  and  made  further  experiments  on  long 
water-courses  needless. 

Watson  had  noticed  that  when  the  wire  running  across 
Westminster  Bridge  touched  wet  stones  the  shock  trans- 
mitted seemed  to  lose  strength,  and  that  the  same  result 
happened  when  it  lay  on  wet  grass.  He  surmised  at  once 
that  a  leakage  of  the  charge  thus  took  place  from  the 
wire.  He  now  provided  a  circuit  nearly  four  miles  in 
length,  being  two  miles  of  wire  supported  on  dry  sticks 
and  two  miles  of  earth.  The  observers  at  the  distant 
stations  fired  muskets  to  notify  the  man  at  the  jar  when 


WATSON'S  EXPERIMENTS  ON  LONG  CIRCUITS.      551 

they  wanted  the  discharge  to  take  place.  The  shock  was 
so  severe  that  some  of  them  demurred  to  receiving  it 
through  their  bodies,  although  they  found  amusement  in 
the  antics  of  the  astonished  countrymen  whom  they  per- 
suaded to  join  hands  with  them. 

Successful  transmission  over  a  four-mile  circuit — tla 
distance  without  trial  too  great  to  be  credited" — left 
Watson  wondering  how  far  the  commotion  would  actually 
manifest  itself,  and  what  experiments  he  should  try  in 
order  to  find  out.  If  he  could  determine  the  velocity  of 
electricity,  then  perhaps  he  could  form  some  idea  of  the 
length  of  circuit  which  would  serve  to  test  the  matter. 
He  attacked  that  problem  very  much  as  Lemon nier  had 
done,  by  endeavoring  to  make  a  comparison  between  the 
speed  of  the  commotion  and  the  velocity  of  sound;  but  the 
effort  was  as  unavailing  as  that  of  his  French  rival,  and 
his  conclusion  the  same;  that  the  transmission  of  elec- 
tricity u  over  any  of  the  distances  yet  experienced  is  nearly 
instantaneous." 

None  the  less,  however,  had  Watson  invented  and  used 
the  circuit  of  wire  and  earth  which,  in  later  years,  proved 
of  such  great  value  in  long  telegraph  lines.  But  no  in- 
telligence was  sent  electrically  over  Watson's  wire.  The 
shock  of  the  jar  made  the  observers  jump — and  that  was 
all.  No  one  thought  of  transmitting  shocks  at  varying 
intervals  so  as  to  signal  intelligence  by  them.  There  was 
not  the  slightest  notion  of  telegraphic  communication 
present  in  Watson's  mind.  He  was  merely  seeking  to 
discover  how  far  the  "commotion"  would  travel,  and  in 
that  way  to  obtain  some  knowledge  of  its  strength  and 
speed. 

Next  to  having  one's  discoveries  prematurely  made  by 
another,  nothing  is  more  disconcerting  than  to  have  some- 
body else  bring  home  the  conviction  that  the  fundamental 
hypothesis  upon  which  one  has  based  a  whole  series  of 
creditable  deductions  and  experiments  is  probably  wrong. 
However  excellent  the  last  may  be  in  themselves,  they 


552          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

are  left  in  the  air,  so  to  speak,  and  something  must  be 
done  without  delay  to  replace  the  shattered  underpinning, 
a  task  often  requiring  much  ingenuity  and  some  subtlety. 
Watson  had  already  suffered  the  first  annoyance  at  the 
hands  of  Lemonnier.  When  Collinson  gave  him  Frank- 
lin's letters,  he  found  that  the  second  was  also  to  be  en- 
countered. He  could  not  dispute  Franklin's  conclusions, 
because  he  was  himself  convinced  that  they  explained 
matters  very  much  more  reasonably  than  did  his  own. 
He  felt  instinctively  that  if  he  had  only  thought  of  them 
he  would  have  promulgated  them  without  hesitation. 
Unfortunately  he  had  not  done  so.  In  brief,  he  was  will- 
ing to  admit  the  validity  of  Franklin's  theory,  but  unwill- 
ing to  concede  the  invalidity  of  his  own. 

The  communication  which  Watson  sent  to  the  Royal 
Society  in  January,  1748,  would  have  been  more  in  har- 
mony with  the  reputation  of  its  brilliant  and  ingenious 
author  had  he  shown  in  it  greater  candor.  As  it  was,  his 
chosen  course  precipitated  a  controversy  which  has  re- 
tained vitality  to  the  present  time,  and  which  has  engen- 
dered dissensions  exhibiting  British  insularity  in  some  of 
its  least  agreeable  phases.  Without  seeking  to  revive  it 
here,  it  will  suffice  to  say  that  Watson  found,  in  his  own 
mind,  arguments  which  justified  him  in  affirming  that  his 
theory,  as  a  whole  and  radically,  had  always  been  the  same 
as  that  propounded  by  Franklin,  although  a  suspicion  of 
salving  his  conscience  is  unavoidable  when  it  is  found  that 
afterwards  he  really  reverses  his  hypothesis  in  detail  to 
make  it  accord.  His  partisans  saw  in  the  first  proceeding 
reason  for  ascribing  to  him,  rather  than  to  Franklin,  the 
full  credit  for  originating  the  plus  and  minus  doctrine;  and 
in  the  second,  only  proof  of  ingenuous  willingness  on  the 
part  of  the  most  eminent  philosopher  in  the  kingdom  to 
defer  to  any  one,  however  humble,  rather  than  permit 
conclusions  presented  by  him  to  retain  the  semblance 
of  inaccuracy.  But  even  an  advocacy  which  included  that 
of  the  all-knowing  Whewell,  and  left  its  mark  in  the 


UNIVERSITY 

OF 


NEW   THEORIES   OF   ELECTRICITY.  553 

abridgments  of  the  Philosophical  Transactions,  cannot 
overcome  the  plain  meaning  of  Watson's  own  words,  writ- 
ten before  he  had  ever  heard  of  Franklin,  which  have  re- 
mained in  the  records  of  the  Royal  Society.  The  unpre- 
judiced student  of  to-day  will  perhaps  find  in  the  idea  of 
electrical  equilibrium  in  all  bodies  a  sufficient  distinction 
between  the  Franklinian  and  Watsonian  theories,  even 
if,  in  view  of  other  differences,  he  does  not  finally  regard 
the  two  hypotheses  as  diametrical  opposites. 

New  theories  now  began  to  crop  up  on  every  hand. 
Benjamin  Wilson  supposed  an  electric  matter,  composed 
of  Newtonian  ether,  light  and  other  material  particles 
4<  that  are  of  a  sulphurous  nature,"  existing  more  or  less  in 
all  bodies,  and  moving  with  such  exceeding  velocity  that, 
when  that  motion  is  checked  by  the  near  approach  of  an- 
other body,  a  sudden  rarefaction  of  the  air  causes  an  explo- 
sion attended  with  the  dissipation  of  the  electric  matter  in 
flame.  John  Elicott  asserted  that  electric  phenomena  are 
due  to  effluvia  which  are  attracted  by  all  other  bodies,  but 
the  particles  of  which  are  mutually  repellent.  Boulanger 
conceived  an  electric  fluid,  consisting  of  the  finer  parts  of 
the  atmosphere,  which  crowded  upon  the  surfaces  of  elec- 
tric bodies  when  the  grosser  parts  had  been  driven  away 
by  the  friction  of  the  rubber.  Nollet  further  amplified  his 
doctrine  of  the  affluence  of  electric  matter  driving  all  light 
bodies  before  it  by  impulse,  and  its  effluence  carrying 
them  back  again,  and  supposed  in  every  body  to  which 
electricity  is  communicated  the  existence  of  two  sets  of 
pores,  one  for  the  emission  of  the  effluvia,  and  the  other 
for  the  reception  of  them  ;  for  the  spirit  of  Descartes  was 
still  lingering  in  France.  Du  Tour  improved  upon 
Nollet'  s  theory  by  assuming  a  difference  between  the 
affluences  and  effluences,  and  considered  that  the  particles 
are  thrown  into  "vibrations  of  different  qualities." 

It  would  be  easy,  but  useless,  to  add  to  this  list.  Priest- 
ley well  describes  the  condition  of  affairs  in  saying  that 
many  hypotheses  were  no  more  than  the  beings  of  a  day, 


554         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

and  were  no  sooner  started  than  their  authors  found  them- 
selves compelled,  upon  the  appearance  of  a  new  fact,  to 
remodel  or  reject  them.  They  were,  as  a  rule,  the  off- 
spring of  limited  knowledge,  promulgated  because  they 
happened  to  fit  specific  phenomena  with  which  their  pro- 
posers were  acquainted,  and  not  reached  by  any  rigorous 
system  of  induction  from  accumulated  and  well-chosen 
facts. 

Through  all  of  them,  however,  one  clearly  defined  idea 
now  begins  to  show  itself — that  of  an  electrical  fluid;  first 
regarded  as  identical  with  fire,  afterwards  distinguished 
therefrom.  And  because  Franklin  dealt  with  this  fluid  in 
the  simplest  possible  way,  considering  merely  the  quantity 
of  it,  recognizing  no  varieties  in  it,  and,  in  brief,  treating 
it  from  a  purely  material,  almost  mechanical,  standpoint, 
his  conception  replaced  all  others  and  survived  them. 

To  return,  however,  to  Watson,  who  had  resumed  ex- 
perimenting upon  the  L,eyden  jar,  and  who  was  now  en- 
deavoring to  increase  its  strength,  which,  as  he  says,  he 
succeeds  in  doing  to  an  astonishing  degree  by  using  three 
vials  coated  with  sheet  lead  and  containing  each  some 
fifty  pounds  of  shot.  The  wires  which  entered  these  were 
connected  by  an  iron  rod  which  in  turn  communicated 
with  the  gun-barrel  prime  conductor  of  an  electric  ma- 
chine. The  coatings  were  also  connected  by  small  wires, 
all  of  which  were  united  to  a  tail  wire.  Watson  amused 
himself — in  fact,  from  this  time  on  nearly  all  electrical  ex- 
periments assume  rather  an  entertaining  character — by 
concealing  the  charged  jars  in  his  room  and  running  the 
tail  wire  from  them  through  the  carpet,  so  that  it  would  be 
invisible  to  any  one  standing  on  it,  and  then  completing 
the  circuit  by  touching  the  gun  barrel  with  his  finger.  In 
this  way  he  astonished  his  visitors  with  unexpected  shocks 
coming  from  no  visible  source.  It  will  be  observed  that 
his  three  jars  were  still  connected  in  multiple  arc,  or 
parallel,  relation,  a  fact  of  especial  significance  in  view 
of  the.  steps  taken  by  Franklin  immediately  after  receiving 
Watson's  pamphlet,  in  which  this  experiment  is  described. 


BEVIS'  IMPROVEMENTS   ON   THE    LEYDEN  JAR.       555 

Meanwhile  Dr.  Bevis,  who  had  advised  Watson  to  coat 
the  outside  of  the  jar  with  sheet  lead  instead  of  holding  it 
in  his  hand,  again  tells  him  of  another  and  capital  improve- 
ment. Bevis  had  coated  both  sides  of  a  thin  pane  of  glass 
about  a  foot  square  with  leaf  silver,  and  had  found  that, 
after  charging  the  glass  in  the  usual  way,  a  person  touch- 
ing both  silver  coatings  received  a  shock  as  strong  as  from 
a  half-pint  vial  of  water.  Watson  had  hitherto  supposed 
that  the  strength  of  the  discharge  of  the  jar  was  due  solely 
to  the  u  great  quantity  of  non-electric  (conducting)  matter' ' 
contained  in  it;  but  here  only  about  six  grains  of  silver 
.had  been  used  to  cover  the  glass,  so  that  the  quantity  was 
exceedingly  small — and  thus  that  hypothesis  fell.  But  the 
Leyden  jar,  in  the  shape  in  which  it  is  still  commonly 
known,  resulted.  Watson  coated  a  cylindrical  jar  of  thin 
glass  with  leaf  silver  inside  and  out,  and  obtained  an  ex- 
plosion equal  in  strength  to  that  of  his  three  lead-covered 
vials  in  parallel;  and  evolved  a  new  theory,  which  ascribed 
the  effect  unot  so  much  to  the  quantity  of  non-electrical 
matter  contained  in  the  glass,  as  to  the  number  of  points 
of  non-electrical  contact  within  the  glass  and  the  density 
of  the  matter  constituting  those  points,  provided  this  matter 
be  in  its  own  nature  a  ready  conductor  of  electricity." 

The  more  powerful  discharges  which  still  larger  jars 
gave  him  and  the  ease  with  which  they  traversed  non-in- 
sulated conductors,  encouraged  Watson  to  make  another 
attempt  to  find  out  the  velocity  of  electricity  by  bringing 
both  ends  of  a  long  circuit  wire  to  a  single  observer;  but, 
although  the  circuit  measured  12,276  feet  in  length,  he  was 
again  obliged  to  record  the  fact  that  the  passage  of  the 
"commotion"  cannot  be  regarded  as  other  than  instan- 
taneous. 


Watson's  account  of  these  latest  experiments  was  pub- 
lished in  book  form  in  the  fall  of  1748,  and  the  diligent 
Collinson  duly  dispatched  it  to  Franklin.  The  avidity 


556          THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

with  which  it  was  read  by  that  philosopher  and  his  col- 
leagues is  plainly  shown  by  the  contents  of  the  next  letter 
which  Collinson  received.  The  Americans  now  saw 
that  they  were  fully  as  far  advanced  as  the  British  elec- 
tricians, and  that  each  party  was  as  likely  to  make  im- 
portant discoveries  as  the  other.  Franklin  had  recognized 
this  fact  in  his  preceding  letter,  wherein  he  stated  that  the 
rapidity  of  the  progress  in  England  half  discouraged  him 
from  writing  further  on  the  subject,  lest  his  communica- 
tions should  contain  nothing  new  or  worth  reading.  The 
news  in  Watson's  paper  that  Dr.  Bevis  had  already  devised 
the  pane  of  glass  coated  with  sheet  metal  as  a  substitute 
for  the  jar,  is,  therefore,  something  of  a  disappointment; 
and  Franklin  even  excuses  himself  for  mentioning  it, 
although  he  thought  to  have  communicated  it  as  a  novelty 
since  "  we  tried  the  experiment  differently,  drew  different 
consequences  from  it,  and  as  far  as  we  know,  have  carried 
it  farther." 

There  seems  to  be  no  reason  for  this  diffidence  on 
Franklin's  part.  It  does  not  appear  certain  that  Bevis7 
invention  antedated  his  own — on  the  contrary,  the  multi- 
plicity of  Franklin's  experiments  go  to  show  that  he  may 
well  have  used  the  coated  glass  before  Bevis.  But  the 
American  colonist  of  those  days  had  a  respect  for  the 
mother  country  that  was  controlling,  and  which  made  it 
almost  instinctive  for  him  to  assume  that  knowledge 
moved  westward,  and  not  in  the  reverse  direction. 

Franklin's  letter  of  1748,  in  point  of  historical  interest, 
is  of  the  highest  importance.  Kinnersley's  discovery  that 
the  Leyden  jar  can  be  electrified  as  strongly  by  sparks  de- 
livered to  the  outside  as  to  the  inside,  begins  it;  so  that  it 
opens  with  an  assertion  than  which  nothing  could  be 
more  disconcerting  to  the  European  electricians  who  still 
persisted  in  the  belief  that  the  electrical  fire  entered  the 
water  within  the  jar,  and  became  somehow  entangled 
there.  Franklin,  following,  shows  how,  if  the  inside  of 
one  insulated  jar  be  connected  to  the  outside  of  another,  an 


CONNECTION.  557 

explosion  and  shock  follows,  and  both  jars  are  discharged; 
how  half  the  charge  in  an  electrified  jar  will  go  to  a  non- 
electrified  jar;  how  jars  are  oppositely  electrified  according 
as  the  charge  is  imparted  to  the  inside  or  the  outside,  and 
how  the  suspended  cork  ball  will  continue  vibrating  be- 
tween the  hooks  on  the  ends  of  the  inserted  wires  of  two 
oppositely-charged  jars,  u  fetching  the  electric  fluid  from 
the  one  and  delivering  it  to  the  other,  till  both  vials  are 
nearly  discharged." 

It  will  be  remembered  that  when  Winkler  or  Watson 
desired  to  combine  the  strengths  of  two  or  more  L,eyden 
jars,  they  arranged  the  latter  in  the  parallel  or  multiple 
arc  relation.  Franklin,  studying  the  charging  process, 
now  suspends  "two  or  more  vials  on  the  prime  con- 
ductor, one  hanging  on  the  tail  of  the  other,  and  a  wire 
from  the  last  to  the  floor."  "An  equal  number  of  turns 
of  the  wheel,"  he  says,  "shall  charge  them  all  equally,  and 
every  one  as  much  as  one  alone  would  have  been;  what 
is  driven  out  at  the  tail  of  the  first  serving  to  charge  the 
second;  what  is  driven  out  of  the  second  charging  the 
third,  and  so  on.  By  this  means  a  great  number  of  bottles 
might  be  charged  with  the  same  labor  and  equally  high 
with  one  alone,  were  it  not  that  every  bottle  receives  new 
fire  and  loses  its  old  with  some  reluctance,  or  rather  gives 
some  small  resistance  to  charging." 

That  is  the  first  announcement  of  the  arrangement  of 
electrical  sources  in  the  series  or  tandem  relation — an  in- 
vention which,  as  will  now  be  seen,  Franklin  immediately 
turned  to  practical  account. 

Meanwhile  he  made  a  little  series  of  experiments  which, 
for  neatness  and  exquisite  ingenuity,  remind  one  of 
Dufay,  which  show  incidentally  how  the  coated  pane 
came  to  the  inventor  under  circumstances  entirely  differ- 
ent from  those  which  led  to  its  suggestion  by  Bevis,  and 
which  ended  in  the  famous  Franklinian  battery. 

The  question  which  especially  puzzled  Franklin  was 
where  the  charge  went  in  the  jar,  and  how  there  could 


558         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

be  produced  therein,  at  the  same  time,  a  plenum  which 
"  presses  violently  to  expand,  and  the  hungry  vacuum 
(which)  seems  to  attract  as  violently  in  order  to  be  filled." 
He  had  theorized  about  it:  so  had  Watson  and  everybody 
else  since  the  jar  had  been  discovered:  just  as  the  world 
had  theorized  about  the  amber  before  Gilbert;  just  as  the 
world  always  finds  it  so  much  easier  to  explain  Nature's 
workings  by  the  vibration  of  its  own  brain  molecules  than 
to  let  the  workings  explain  themselves.  Where  is  the 
charge  in  the  Ley  den  jar?  In  the  man  who  holds  it,  said 
Von  Kleist.  In  the  water,  said  Musschenbroeck.  In 
the  inner  conducting  coating,  said  Watson — and  so  on. 
Franklin  proceeded  to  pull  the  jar  to  pieces. 

First. — He  put  it  on  glass,  so  that  the  charge  could  not 
run  away  during  the  dissection.  Then  he  pulled  out  the 
cork  and  the  inserted  wire,  and  taking  the  bottle  in  one 
hand,  put  a  finger  of  the  other  near  the  water  within.  A 
spark  passed.  Therefore  the  cork  and  wire  had  nothing 
to  do  with  the  matter. 

Second. — He  recharged  the  bottle,  put  it  again  on  glass, 
drew  out  cork  and  wire  and  poured  out  the  water  into 
another  jar,  also  standing  on  glass.  Now,  if  the  charge 
was  in  the  water,  that  second  jar  should  give  a  shock.  It 
did  not.  There  was  no  electricity  in  the  water  at  all.  It 
must  either  have  been  lost  by  decanting,  or  must  still 
remain  in  the  first  jar.  If  it  was  in  the  latter,  the  jar 
should  give  its  shock  when  fresh  water  was  poured  into  it. 
He  poured  some  in  "out  of  a  tea-pot."  The  jar  worked 
perfectly.  So  the  water  had  nothing  whatever  to  do  with 
the  matter,  and  the  charge  must  be  either  in  the  glass  or  in 
the  outer  coating  of  the  jar  (either  the  hand  or  lead  foil), 
for  the  simple  reason  that  there  were  no  other  parts  of  the 
apparatus  left. 

Third. — He  laid  a  pane  of  glass  flat  on  his  hand,  and 
put  a  lead  plate  on  it:  the  glass,  like  the  wall  of  the  jar, 
now  stood  between  two  conducting  layers — hand  and  lead. 
He  electrified  it,  and  got  a  shock  on  touching  the  lead 
plate.  The  form  of  the  jar  was  therefore  immaterial. 


FRANKLIN'S   ELECTRICAL   BATTERY.  559 

Fourth. — He  placed  the  glass  between  two  plates  of 
lead  less  in  area  than  the  pane,  and  electrified  the  glass 
between  them  by  electrifying  the  uppermost  lead.  Then 
he  took  the  glass  from  between  the  lead  plates  and  found 
that,  on  touching  it  here  and  there  with  the  finger,  he  ob- 
tained "very  small  pricking  sparks,"  but  a  great  number 
of  them  might  be  taken  from  different  places.  There  was 
no  sign  of  electricity  in  the  lead.  The  moment  he  put  the 
glass  back  between  the  plates  and  connected  the  latter 
through  his  body,  a  violent  shock  ensued. 

And  so  he  concludes  that  u  the  whole  force  of  the  bottle, 
and  power  of  giving  a  shock,  is  in  the  glass  itself:  the  non- 
electrics  in  contact  with  the  two  surfaces  serving  only  to 
give  and  receive  to  and  from  the  several  parts  of  the  glass: 
that  is,  to  give  on  one  side  and  take  away  from  the  other," 
and  he  compares  the  metal  coatings  to  the  "armature  of  a 
lodestone  to  unite  the  force  of  the  several  parts." 

The  road  was  now  clear  to  the  construction  of  the 
battery.  It  was  made  of  eleven  large  plates  of  sash  glass 
armed  with  thin  leaden  plates,  with  the  giving  side  of  one 
pane  connected  to  the  receiving  side  of  the  other,  but  pro- 
vided with  a  contrivance  uto  bring  the  giving  sides  after 
charging  into  contact  with  one  long  w7ire  and  the  receivers 
with  another,  which  two  long  wires  would  give  the  force 
of  all  the  plates  of  glass  at  once  through  the  body  of  any 
animal  forming  the  circle  between  them."  As  Franklin- 
supposed  that  the  greatest  effects  would  be  gained  with 
the  plates  in  parallel,  he  placed  them  in  series  for  charg- 
ing, and  so  encountered  a  resistance  which  he  says 
"repels  the  fire  back  again  on  the  globe;"  and  thus,  in 
the  beginning,  the  battery  did  not  prove  as  efficient  as  he 
expected.  Afterwards,  however,  he  wrote  "there  are  no 
bounds  (but  what  expense  and  labor  give)  to  the  force  man 
may  raise  and  use  in  the  electrical  way:  for  bottle  may  be 
added  to  bottle,  and  all  united  and  discharged  together  as 
one,  the  force  and  effect  proportioned  to  their  number  and 
size.  The  greatest  known  effects  of  common  lightning 


560         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

may,  I  think,  without  much  difficulty  be  exceeded  in 
this  way." 

Kinnersley,  the  ingenious,  now  appears  with  a  variety 
of  amazing  toys.  He  has  made  a  magic  picture  of  King 
George  with  a  golden  crown  on  his  head,  and  arranged 
Leyden  jar  fashion,  so  that  he  who  touched  the  gilded 
frame  and  at  the  same  time  irreverently  sought  to  grasp 
the  crown  received  a  violent  shock.  ' '  God  preserve  him, ' ' 
says  the  loyal  Franklin,  in  mentioning  the  King's  name; 
but  a  few  years  later,  men  were  indicted  in  Philadelphia 
for  sedition  for  saying  just  the  opposite.  There  is  also  the 
electrical  jack — a  horizontal,  wooden,  pivoted  disk,  having 
insulated  brass  thimbles  around  its  edge  which  succes- 
sively touch  the  wire  of  a  charged  jar  and  are  repelled, 
thus  turning  the  disk;  "and  if  a  large  fowl,"  adds  Frank- 
lin, uwere  spitted  on  the  upright  shaft,  it  would  be  car- 
ried round  before  the  fire  with  a  motion  fit  for  roasting." 

A  much  more  elaborate  electric  motor  was  made  from  a 
circular  sheet  of  glass,  coated  on  both  sides  and  pivoted  to 
turn  horizontally.  The  coatings  alternately  communi- 
cated with  bullets  fixed  at  equal  distances  on  the  circum- 
ference of  the  glass.  Fixed  near  the  disk  were  glass 
supports  carrying  brass  thimbles,  and  near  these  last  the 
bullets  passed  as  they  were  carried  around  by  the  disk. 
The  wheel  being  charged,  the  bullets  were  alternately  re- 
pelled and  attracted  by  the  thimbles.  Franklin  says  that 
it  ran  for  half  an  hour  at  a  time  at  a  speed  of  twenty  turns 
a  minute,  and  Kinnersley  applied  it  to  ringing  chimes  and 
actuating  orreries.  This  was  the  first  application  of  elec- 
tricity to  performing  useful  mechanical  work.  Father 
Gordon's  little  reaction  wheel  had  merely  spun  around  and 
driven  nothing. 

The  summer  of  1749  was  now  at  hand,  and  the  Philadel- 
phia experimenters  determined  to  suspend  work  until  after 
the  hot  weather.  Franklin,  who  does  not  conceal  his  re- 
gret that  "we  have  been  hitherto  able  to  produce  nothing 
in  this  way  of  use  to  mankind,"  ends  his  letter  to  Collin- 


FRANKLIN'S  EXPERIMENTS.  561 

son  with  his  oft-quoted  forecast  of  an  electrical  pleasure 
party  when  u  turkey  is  to  be  killed  for  our  dinner  by  the 
electrical  shock,  and  roasted  by  the  electrical  jack  before  a 


1  FRANKLIN'S  ILLUSTRATIONS   OF  HIS   EXPERIMENTS. 

1  Reproduced  in  reduced  fac  simile  from  the  folding  plate  in  Franklin's 
Jew  Experiments  and  Observations  on  Electricity  made  at  Philadelphia 

36 


562          THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

fire  kindled  by  the  electrical  bottle;  when  the  healths  of  all 
the  famous  electricians  in  England,  Holland,  France  and 
Germany  are  to  be  drank  in  electrified  bumpers,  under  the 
discharge  of  guns  from  the  electrical  battery." 

He  had  then  no  prescience  of  the  great  discovery  which 
he  was  so  soon  to  make.  It  may  be  said  that  the  fulness 
of  time  was  at  hand,  the  environing  conditions  were  all 
favorable,  and  that  if  the  identity  of  the  lightning  and  the 
electrical  spark  had  not  been  shown  by  Franklin,  others, 

in  America — Part  I.,  2nd  ed.  London,  1754.  This  picture  became  the 
frontispiece  in  the  later  editions  of  the  work.  Figs.  I,  II,  III,  IV,  and 
V,  are  described  in  Franklin's  letter  to  Collinson,  dated  July  28,  1747; 
Fig.  VI  in  letter  IV  to  Collinson,  and  Figs.  VII,  VIII,  IX  and  X,  in  the 
"Opinions  and  Conjectures"  sent  Collinson  in  1750.  Fig.  I  represents 
a  Leyden  bottle  (r)  which  whenever  touched  by  the  finger  attracts  the 
thread  (b)  suspended  from  the  wire  (a).  Fig.  II  shows  a  suspended  cork 
(c)  vibrating  between  the  wires  («?)  (e),  one  of  which  enters  the  bottle 
and  the  other  is  connected  to  a  ring  of  lead  upon  which  the  bottle  stands. 
In  Fig.  Ill,  the  bottle  rests  on  wax  and  is  discharged  by  electrically  con- 
necting the  interior  and  exterior  by  means  of  the  wire  (h]  held  in  a 
sealing  wax  handle  (g).  Fig.  IV  represents  a  bottle  surrounded  by  a 
ring  of  lead  (i)  connected  by  a  conductor  with  the  knob  (£)  on  the  in- 
serted wire — such  a  bottle  says  Franklin,  ''cannot  be  electrified;  the 
equilibrium  is  never  destroyed."  In  Fig.  V,  the  jar  rests  on  a  book 
having  a  gilded  design  on  its  cover;  a  wire  (m)  touches  the  gilding  and 
may  be  brought  into  contact  with  the  knob  of  the  bottle.  "Instantly,'' 
says  Franklin,  '•'  there  is  a  strong  spark  and  stroke  and  the  whole  line  of 
gold  which  completes  the  communication  between  the  top  and  bottom 
of  the  bottle  will  appear  a  vivid  flame,  like  the  sharpest  lightning." 

Fig.  VI  is  intended  to  show  that  particles  at  the  surface  of  water  are 
less  strongly  held  by  cohesion  than  others  in  the  body  of  the  fluid,  and 
hence  when  the  water  is  electrified  are  more  easily  repelled  and  thrown 
off.  Fig.  VII  illustrates  Franklin's  description  of  the  partition  of  a 
charge  or  "electrical  atmosphere"  from  a  Leyden  jar  to  two  suspended 
"apples  or  two  balls  of  wood"  and  between  the  objects  themselves. 
Fig.  VIII  is  in  illustration  of  Franklin's  supposition  that  "electrified 
bodies  discharge  their  atmospheres  upon  electrified  bodies,  more  easily 
and  at  a  greater  distance  from  their  angles  and  points  than  from  their 
smooth  sides."  Fig.  IX  is  the  first  representation  of  the  lightning  rod. 
Fig.  X  represents  Franklin's  "  electrical  fish  " — a  piece  of  Dutch  metal, 
cut  in  the  shape  shown,  which  flies  to  the  prime  conductor  of  the  electric 
machine  and  keeps  "a  continued  shaking  of  its  tail  like  a  fish  so  that  it 
seems  animated." 


ANCIENT  SUPERSTITIONS   ABOUT   LIGHTNING.       563 

by  sheer  force  of  circumstances,  would  have  proved  the  fact 
at  about  the  same  period.  When  an  invention  is  claimed 
to  have  leaped  full-armed  from  the  mind,  when  it  has  no 
discernible  ancestry  or  evolution,  this  argument  may  find 
some  application.  But  can  any  one  read  the  preliminary 
experiments  which  have  now  been  detailed,  or  note 
Franklin's  reflections  on  the  drawing  power  of  points  or 
the  tremendous  force  of  the  battery  discharge,  without 
recognizing  that,  guided  as  by  some  controlling  power,  he 
was  unerringly  moving  toward  the  goal,  even  if  he  knew 
it  not  himself? 

Jets  of  blinding  flame  leaping  across  black  and  angry 
skies,  deafening  peals  of  thunder  reverberating  from  the 
mountain-sides  and  echoing  amid  the  clouds,  the  swift 
obliteration  of  life,  buildings  bursting  into  flame,  great 
rocks  and  trees  shattered — all  this  to  the  old  world  meant 
the  warfare  of  gods  upon  gods,  or  the  fearful  retribution 
visited  by  offended  Deity  upon  rebellious  man.  The 
thunderstorm  became  the  symbol  of  divine  wrath.  Its 
tremendous  effects  offered  the  only  realization  of  the 
majesty  of  the  divine  presence.  The  law  is  given  amid 
the  thunders  and  lightnings  of  Sinai.  The  voice  of  God 
is  the  thunder  and  he  "  directeth  his  lightnings  to  the  ends 
of  the  earth."* 

As  the  ages  passed  the  superstitions  clustered  thicker 
and  thicker  about  the  thunderbolt,  and  the  dread  of  it 
deepened.  u  From  lightning  and  tempest,  from  plague, 
pestilence  and  famine" — so  the  prayer  for  delivery  comes 
down  to  us,  with  the  lightning  first  on  the  lips.  It  was 
for  naught  that  the  philosophers  sought  to  explain  it  by 
natural  causes.  Zeus  launched  his  fiery  missiles  long 
after  Aristotle  described  them  as  moist  exhalations  burst- 
ing out  of  moist  clouds.  What  protection  could  there  be 
against  so  fearful  a  visitation  save  invocation  of  the 
divine  mercy — for  what  shield  could  the  puny  arm  of 
man  interpose  against  the  might  of  the  Almighty  ? 


564         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

We  shall  go  far  astray  if  the  great  force  of  such  a  belief 
be  not  kept  steadily  in  view  throughout  any  effort  we  may 
make  to  discover  possible  knowledge  of  the  ancients l  re- 
garding the  nature  of  lightning  or  the  provision  of  safe- 
guards against  it.  It  is  useless  to  search  the  annals  of  an 
intensely  religious  or  superstitious  people  to  discover 
either  physical  explanations  or  material  defenses.  Equally 
unavailing  is  it  to  assume  that  a  wrong  interpretation  of 
"  the  cause  of  thunder  n  could  result  in  an  adequate  means 
of  protection.  The  only  rational  basis  for  entertaining 
the  notion  that  some  knowledge  may  have  existed  in  re- 
mote times  must  be  found  in  the  supposition  that  chance 
circumstances  under  which  the  lightning-stroke  was  ap- 
parently warded  off  were  recognized  and  reproduced  em- 
pirically. If,  for  example,  it  were  perceived  that  the  lofty 
trees  of  a  forest  were  struck  oftener  than  those  of  less 
growth,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  conclude  that  the 
erection  of  high  towers,  spires,  minarets,  or  obelisks  in 
the  vicinity  of  low  buildings  might  result  in  providing 
scape-goats  or  sacrifices  upon  which  the  celestial  fire  might 
wreak  its  vengeance,  leaving  the  more  important  human 
habitations  unharmed.2 

Nothing  is  so  difficult  as  prophecy  before,  nothing  so 
easy  as  prophecy  after  the  event;  and  the  history  of  the 
lightning-rod  has  many  an  instance  of  the  latter.  The 
Temple  of  Jerusalem,  says  one  archaeologist,3  was  fully 
protected,  because  Josephus4  records  that  on  the  roof  there 

1  See  Salverte:  Philosophy  of  Magic.     N.  Y.,  1847,  vol.  ii.,  p.   150,  in 
which  there  is  an  extended  discussion  on  the  electrical  phenomena  em- 
ployed by  the  magicians,  with  many  references  to  ancient  writings. 

2  Under  such  a  theory  as  this  it  may  perhaps  be  possible,  for  example, 
to  account  for  the  two  thousand  ancient  pagodas,  which  are  now  falling 
into  ruin  in  China,  and  which,  although  apparently  useless,  act  as  the 
Chinese  geomancers  claim,  "to  drawdown  every  felicitous  omen  from 
above,  so  that  fire,  water,  wood,  earth  and  metal  will  be  at  the  service  of 
the  people,   the  soil  productive,  trade  prosperous,  and  everybody  sub- 
missive and  happy."     Williams:  The  Middle  Kingdom,  ii,  747. 

3Michaelis:  Mag.  Scient.  de  Gottingen,  3d  yr.,  5th  No.,  1783. 
4  Josephus:  Bel.  Jud.  adv.  Rom.,  Lib.  v,  c.  xiv. 


ANCIENT  SUGGESTIONS  OF  LIGHTNING  PROTECTION.    565 

were  many  points,  similar  to  those  which  appear  on  the 
Roman  temples  of  Juno,  and  that  pipes  ran  from  the  roof 
to  caverns  in  the  hill  on  which  the  building  was  situated. 
The  Jewish  historian  assigns  for  the  points  the  somewhat 
prosaic  function  of  perches  for  the  birds,  and  it  requires  no 
especial  effort  to  conceive  that  the  pipes  served  to  lead  off 
rainwater.  But,  says  the  acute  inventor  of  the  new 
hypothesis,  the  temple  was  never  struck  by  lightning 
during  a  thousand  years;  it  cannot  be  conceded  that 
those  points  were  put  there  for  the  benefit  of  the  birds; 
the  ignorance  of  Josephus  in  this  respect  is  merely  "proof 
of  the  facility  with  which  the  knowledge  of  important 
facts  is  forgotten;"  and  indeed,  it  is  inconceivable  "that 
the  advantage  to  be  derived  from  them  (the  points)  had 
not  been  calculated  upon." 

Such  prophets  always  take  unnecessary  pains.  It  would 
have  been  far  simpler  to  have  said  that  King  Solomon, 
out  of  his  exceeding  wisdom,  knew  all  about  lightning- 
rods,  just  as  earlier  writers  asserted  his  familiarity  with 
the  mariner's  compass:  although  any  supposition  in  the 
premises  has  the  fatal  defect  of  ignoring  the  sacrilege 
which  the  profoundly-devout  Jew  would  surely  have  seen 
in  such  an  attempt  to  make  the  roof  of  the  temple  into 
a  sort  of  sieve  to  keep  out  the  troublesome  manifestations 
of  the  Deity  who  dwelt  in  its  sanctuary. 

The  folk-lore  of  almost  every  nation  has  its  legends  re- 
counting the  drawing  of  fire  from  heaven.  The  skill  of 
Prometheus  in  bringing  down  the  lightning  (a  fable  which 
sets  Rabelais  wondering  what  has  become  of  the  art),  the 
death  of  Zoroaster  by  lightning  in  response  to  his  own 
prayer,  the  descent  of  the  vestal  fire  from  the  clouds,  have 
furnished  many  a  poet  with  a  fertile  theme.  Occasionally 
the  old  writers  are  curiously  suggestive:  Lucan,1  for 
instance,  when  he  says  that  u  Aruns  collected  the  fires  of 
lightning  dispersed  in  the  air  and  in  the  midst  of  noise 
buried  them  in  the  earth;"  or  Ctesias,  in  his  description 

1  Pharsalia,  i.,  606. 


566         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

of  the  Indian  iron  which  dissipates  clouds,  hail  and  whirl- 
winds. But  they  are  all  vague  and  shadowy.  If  one 
attempts  to  follow  the  roads  down  which  such  stories 
have  come,  he  will  find  that  they  all  lead,  not  to  Rome, 
but  to  her  great  rival,  Btruria. 

As  I'have  already  pointed  out,  in  tracing  the  history  of 
the  compass,  the  Etruscans  were  indefatigable  students  of 
meteorology.  Their  augurs  were  weather-wise,  and  ex- 
ceedingly skillful  in  recognizing  impending  changes,  and 
in  predicting  them.  They  distinguished  three  kinds  of 
lightning-flashes,  according  to  the  gravity  of  their  effects; 
and  eleven  different  species  of  lightning  itself.  Certain 
lightnings,  they  held,  came  out  of  the  earth  and  rose 
perpendicularly — others  shot  from  the  sky  and  struck 
obliquely.  Under  the  guise  of  worship  of  Jupiter  Klicius, 
they  claimed  actually  to  bring  down  the  lightning,  and 
taught  the  secret  of  it  to  King  Num'a,  whose  successor, 
Tullus  Hostilius,  seeking  to  repeat  the  ceremony  from 
the  instructions  left  by  Numa,  made  some  error  and 
paid  the  penalty  with  his  life.1  Tarchon,  the  founder  of 
the  ancient  Etruscan  theurgism,  is  said 'to  have  protected 
his  dwelling  by  surrounding  it  with  white  bryony — a  be- 
lief in  the  efficacy  of  which  plant,  after  the  lapse  of  ages, 
still  prevails  in  modern  India.2 

Gradually  there  grew  up  a  sort  of  pseudo-fulgural 
science.  Constantine  the  Great,  several  years  after  his 
conversion  to  Christianity,  made  a  law  authorizing  the 
Romans  to  consult  the  aruspices  when  an  edifice  had  been 
struck  by  lightning.  Later  still  (A.  D.  408),  when  Rome 
was  besieged  by  Alaric  the  Goth,  certain  Etruscan  magi- 
cians offered  to  extract  the  lightning  from  the  clouds  and 
direct  it  against  the  camp  of  the  Barbarians.  Innocent, 
the  bishop,  was  willing-  that  the  experiment  should  be  tried; 
but  the  Senate — here  literally  "  more  pious  than  the  pope  " 

1  Pliny,  ii.,  55. 

2  Columella:  lib.  x.,  346,  7.     Salverte.  Phil'y  of  Magic.     N.  Y ,  1847,  ii., 
152.    "Fulinineo  periit  imitator  fulniiuis  ictu."  Ovid:  Met.,  xiv.,  617,  618. 


THUNDER   AND   LIGHTNING.  567 

— refused  to  sanction  an  act  which  appeared  to  it  almost 
equivalent  to  the  public  restoration  of  Paganism.1  Down 
through  the  Middle  Ages  the  control  of  thunder  and  light- 
ning was  a  part  of  the  recognized  equipment  of  the 
sorcerer  or  witch — so  that  Prospero's 

To  the  dread  rattling  thunder 
Have  I  given  fire,  and  rifted  Jove's  stout  oak 
With  his  own  bolt, 

bespeaks  no  more  than  ordinary  thaumaturgic  skill. 

Literature,  ancient  and  modern,  abounds  in  allusions  to 
atmospheric  electrical  phenomena  long  before  their  true 
nature  was  known.  Pliny  describes  St.  Elmo's  Fire  as 
well  as  Shakespeare  does.2  Seneca,3  and  Caesar,*  and  Livy 5 
all  record  spears  with  flames  at  their  points  in  the  Roman 
camp,  and  Fynes  Morison  sees  the  same  fires  on  the  staves 
of  Montjoy's  horsemen  at  the  siege  of  Kinsale,  in  1601  f  the 
ancient  Romans  and  the  modern  Scot  being  as  ignorant, 
one  as  the  other,  that  electricity  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  strange  appearance.  It  is  hardly  credible  that  the 
force  of  inverted  prophecy  could  carry  any  one  to  the  ex- 
treme of  finding  in  this  mention  by  Caesar  and  Seneca  of 
the  fiery  spears  pre-knowledge  of  the  Franklinian  dis- 
covery; but  such  is  the  fact,  and  that  the  argument  was 
sufficient  to  convince  so  profound  a  philosopher  as  Arago,7 
will  always  furnish  an  excuse  for  others  whose  sense  of 
similitude  proves  capable  of  overbalancing  their  judgment. 

As  the  world  divested  itself  of  the  influence  of  supersti- 

1  Gibbon:  Decline  and  Fall,  ii.,  122. 

2"  I  boarded  the  King's  ship,  now  on  the  beak, 

Now  in  the  waist,  the  deck,  in  every  cabin 

I  flamed  amazement:  sometimes  I'd  divide 

And  burn  in  many  places;  on  the  top  mast, 

The  yards  and  bowsprit,  would  I  flame  distinctly; 

Then  meet  and  join.  The  Tempest.     Act  i.,  Sc.  2. 

3  Quest.  Nat.,  i.  *  De  Bello  Af.,  6. 

5  Hist.,  c.  ii.  6Phil.  Trans.,  Vol.  48,  754. 

7  Arago:  Eloge  Hist,  de  Alex.  Volta,  Acad.  desSci.,  26  July,  1831. 


568         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

tion,  the  material  theory  of  the  lightning  which  Aristotle 
had  propounded  gradually  replaced  the  imaginative  one. 
The  flame  came  to  be  regarded  as  fire — not  ordinary  fire, 
but  what  Jerome  Cardan1  calls  the  "fire  of  fires."  Fire, 
he  says,  which  is  hotter  than  any  other — differing  from 
any  other  because  the  mere  touch  of  it  kills — the  "fire  of 
thunder."  It  will  melt  the  very  money  in  your  purse, 
and  yet  so  subtly  as  not  to  harm  the  purse  itself.  It 
enters  the  metal  and  tears  it  asunder.  Then  he  has  this 
curious  passage: 

"And  this  kind  of  fire  must  necessarily  have  great 
velocity  in  solid  matter.  Indeed,  why  does  the  thunder 
never  touch  columns  or  sink  ships?  It  seldom  touches 
them,  although  once  I  saw  in  Florence,  at  the  great 
church,  a  column  broken  and  shattered  by  the  thunder; 
but  it  does  not  strike  them  often,  nor  throw  them  down, 
because  the  blow  glances  because  of  the  rotundity.  Sim- 
ilarly, it  seldom  strikes  the  bottoms  of  ships,  because  it 
cannot  penetrate  more  than  five  cubits  below  the  surface 
of  the  earth;  and  the  bottom  of  the  ship  is  low  and  the 
mast  is  high,  and  this  last  is  often  struck.  A  certain 
remedy  against  thunder  is  to  hide  in  deep  caverns,  and 
this  is  more  sure  than  to  crown  oneself  with  sealskin  or 
the  skin  of  an  eagle,  or  to  carry  a  hyacinth  stone;  for  it  is 
said  that  these  things  are  not  touched  by  thunder.  But  I 
have  known  a  laurel  to  be  injured  by  thunder  in  Rome." 

Observe  that  in  Cardan's  time  the  idea  of  possible  pro- 
tection against  lightning  had  become  thinkable — thanks, 
perhaps,  to  the  Reformation — and  the  power  is  supposed 
to  lie  in  the  hyacinth  stone,  "which  protects  men  from 
the  thunder;"  and  this  "is  no  small  power,  seeing  the 
many  noble  personages  who  have  thus  suddenly  perished 
— Zoroaster,  King  of  the  Bactrians;  Capaneus,  in  the 
Theban  War;  Ajax,  after  the  destruction  of  Troy;  Anas- 
tasius,  the  Emperor,  in  the  27th  year  of  his  reign;  Carus, 
also,  and  other  emperors.  Let  us  consider  how  this  can 

1  De  Subtilitate,  Lib.  ii. 


OLD   BELIEFS  ON   NATURE  OF   LIGHTNING.  569 

happen.  Hither  the  hyacinth  prevents  the  thunder  from 
coming,  or  it  directs  the  judgment  of  whoever  carries  it,  or 
it  simply  prevents  him  who  has  it  from  being  injured,  even 
if  struck.  These  are  the  only  ways.  To  be  struck  by 
thunder  and  not  hurt  is  incredible  and,  besides,  the 
authors  have  not  said  this,  but  that  the  thunder  does  not 
touch  the  possessor.  To  hinder  the  thunder  coming  is  a 
still  greater  miracle;"  and  finally  the  wise  Cardan  arrives 
at  the  conclusion  that  the  stone  can  act  only  by  making 
the  heart  strong  and  wise  and  joyful,  so  that  the  owner 
thereof  keeps  out  of  peril.  Such  was  lightning  protection 
and  the  philosophical  notion  of  the  nature  of  lightning  in 


A  few  years,  and  it  is  Shakespeare's  time.     Note  the 
question  which  he  gives  to  the  crazed  Lear  — 

"  First  let  me  talk  with  this  philosopher, 
What  is  the  cause  of  thunder?"1 

and  answers  through  Brutus,  and  Ariel,  and  Volumnia  —  - 

"Exhalations  whizzing  in  the  air."2 

"The  fire  and  cracks 
Of  sulphurous  roaring."3 

"  To  charge  thy  sulphur  with  a  bolt 
Which  should'st  but  rive  an  oak."4 

The  lightning  was  then  believed  to  be  a  burning  sulphur- 
ous vapor;  sulphurous  because  it  caused  the  air  to  smell 
like  sulphur  —  a  circumstance  which  Boyle  noticed  in  the 
rubbed  amber,  and  made  no  more  mental  connection  be- 
tween it  and  the  lightning  odor  than  Kriiger  did  after  him. 
A  little  later  and  we  shall  find  that  the  idea  of  guarding 
against  the  lightning  crosses  Ben  Jonson's  erratic  orbit  — 

"  Sir  —  shall  I  say  to  you  for  that  hat  .    .  it  is  proof 
Against  thunder  and  enchantment  "—  5 

1  King  Lear,  Act  iii.,  Sc.  4.  2Julius  Caesar,  Act  i.,  Sc.  2. 

3  Tempest,  Act  i.,  Sc.  2.  -Coriolanus,  Act  v.,  Sc.  3. 

5  Cynthia's  Revels. 


57P         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

and  afterwards  the  seeker  for  such  allusions  will  find  a 
harvest  of  them  which  space  does  not  permit  me  to  gather 
here. 


By  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  explanation 
of  lightning  which  prevailed  up  to  Franklin's  time  was 
fully  formulated.  Dr.  Wallis  believed  it  to  be  due  to  the 
detonation  of  a  mixture  of  nitrous  and  sulphurous  vapors 
in  the  air — the  conditions  being  similar  to  those  occurring 
during  the  explosion  of  gunpowder,  in  which  substantially 
the  same  elements  are  present.  Later  opinions  differed  as 
to  the  nature  of  the  exploding  gases  and  their  mode  of 
generation  in  the  atmosphere;  but  the  general  consensus 
regarded  the  lightning  and  the  thunder  as  the  celestial 
artillery — the  explosion  and  the  report  occurring  in  the 
same  way  as  in  earthly  fire-arms.1 

Early  in  the  eighteenth  century  Hauksbee  compared 
the  flickering  lights  in  his  globe  to  the  lightning  flash, 
and  Dr.  Wall  saw  in  the  cracklings  and  sparks  of  rubbed 
amber  a  resemblance,  in  some  degree,  to  thunder  and 
lightning;  and  Gray,  following  the  same  thought,  con- 
ceived the  electric  fire  and  lightning  to  be  "of  the  same 
nature."  But  these  were  the  merest  conjectures.  That 
of  Wall  is  equally  true  of  the  discharge  of  a  fire-arm. 
Gray's  conception  that  the  electric  fire  is  "of  the  same 
nature"  as  the  lightning  is  consonant  with  the  common 
belief  that  fire  is  an  element,  and  therefore  the  same 
everywhere;  so  that  his  assertion  amounts  to  nothing 

1  To  show  how  a  precisely  similar  idea  is  often  reached  by  entirely 
different  paths,  it  may  here  be  noted  that  Dr.  Dionysius  Lardner,  writing 
in  1844  (see  Manual  of  Electricity,  ii.,  165),  after  noting  the  many  in- 
stances collected  by  Arago  of  the  sulphurous  odor  following  a  lightning 
stroke,  and  the  detection  by  Liebig  of  nitric  acid  in  rain  water,  says  "it 
would  be  a  curious  and  interesting  result  of  scientific  investigation  to  de- 
monstrate that  the  thunder  of  heaven  elaborates  in  the  clouds  the  chief 
ingredients  of  the  counterfeit  thunders  which  man  has  invented  for  the 
destruction  of  his  fellows." 


JOHN   FREKE.  571 

more  than  the  same  indication  of  resemblance  made  by 
his  predecessors. 

What  these  men  really  did  was  to  make  so  happy  a  sug- 
gestion that  other  men  were  led  to  seek  reasons  in  support 
of  it.  And  as  the  truth  was  in  it,  it  lived. 

Early  in  1746,  John  Freke,1  of  the  Royal  Society  and 
surgeon  to  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital,  announced  the 
first  hypothesis  asserting,  and  attempting  physically  to 
explain,  the  actual  identity  of  lightning  and  electricity. 
Observing  that  there  was  no  change  produced  in  the 
instruments  for  electric  generation  due  to  their  production 
of  electricity,  he  maintained  that  they  had  no  more  to  do 
with  the  development  of  the  electrical  matter  than  a  pump 
has  with  the  development  of  water.  The  electrical  matter 
he  regarded  as  fire  composed  of  similar  particles,  tending 
to  adhere  at  certain  distances  apart,  and  impregnating  the 
air.  If  the  particles,  however,  be  forced  together,  reduc- 
ing these  intervals,  then  the  fire  becomes  more  or  less 
violent  according  to  the  degree  of  compression. 

41  Now,"  he  says,  "as  by  human  contrivance  here  is  more 
of  the  fire  crowded  together  than  in  its  natural  state,  it  is 
no  wonder  in  this  confinement,  if  that  which,  as  water 
unconfined,  should  be  gentle  and  beneficent,  should,  with 
all  the  power  that  belongs  to  it,  break  out  at  the  first  door 
which  is  opened  for  its  passage  from  this  tortured  state. 
.  .  .  Lightning,  which  is  produced  by  a  great  quantity 
of  the  elementary  fire  driven  together,  is  of  the  same 
nature  with  electricity  (which  is  no  other  than  factitious 
lightning),  for  it  will  kill  without  a  wound  and  pass 
through  everything,  as  this  seems  to  do."  JThe  celestial 
fire,  he  says,  amassed  by  any  cause  and  enveloped,  per- 
haps, and  retained  in  this  disturbed  state,  discharges 
itself  finally  with  the  explosion  which  we  call  thunder. 

1  Freke:  An  Essay  to  show  the  cause  of  Elec'y,  etc.  Lond.,  1746. 
See  also  British  Magazine,  Oct.,  1746,  300;  London  Magazine,  Nov., 
1746,  573.  Essai  sur  la  Cause  de  1'Elec.  (Trans,  of  2d  Ed.,  with  supple- 
ment), Paris,  1748. 


572         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

It  is  needless  to  discuss  Freke's  supposition,  because, 
almost  immediately  following  him,  came  Winkler,1  with  a 
theory  still  more  highly  elaborated,  in  which  the  like- 
nesses between  electricity  and  lightning  were  pointed  out 
with  remarkable  detail.  He  demands  "whether  the 
shock  and  spark  of  strengthened  electricity  is  a  kind  of 
thunder  and  lightning,"  and  proceeds  to  answer  the  query 
at  length. 

The  lightning-stroke,  he  explains,  is  enormously  more 
powerful  than  the  electric  spark;  but  that  is  no  proof  that 
they  are  of  different  natures.  Even  if  a  man  had  never 
seen  fire  and  explosion  except  from  a  cannon,  would  he 
fail  to  recognize,  in  the  discharge  of  a  boy's  pistol,  the 
same  effects,  but  in  weaker  degree?  The  lightning- 
stroke  and  the  electric  spark  are  alike  in  rapidity.  Add 
together  the  detonations  of  many  electric  sparks,  and  the 
noise  may  be  augmented.  So  in  the  lightning,  which 
may  consist  of  an  immense  number  of  such  sparks,  the 
combined  explosion  of  all  causes  the  sound  of  thunder. 
Lightning  moves  through  the  air  in  a  zigzag  or  serpentine 
path;  so  does  an  electric  spark  in  passing  over  moist 
insulators.  The  lightning-flash  is  sometimes  multiple — 
like  a  collection  of  rockets;  so  is  the  discharge  between 
iron  cylinders.  The  lightning-flash  will  lay  hold  of  solid 
bodies  and  melt  them  even  when  enclosed  and  without 
injuring  the  envelope  (Cardan's  coins  melted  in  their 
purse);  the  spark  will  reach  non-electrics,  through  insu- 
lators. It  will  pass  through  one's  clothes,  or  electrify 
metal  enclosed  in  paper.  True  we  cannot  burn  houses 
and  trees,  or  kill  men  and  animals,  by  the  spark;  but  not 
all  kinds  of  lightning  do  this,  hence  the  spark  may  re- 
semble some  particular  variety. 

Winkler's  conclusion  is  that  the  atmosphere  contains 
matter  in  great  quantities,  derived  from  exhalation  and 
evaporation,  going  on  at  the  earth's  surface.  It  abounds 

1  Winkler:  Die  Starke  der  Electrischen  Kraft  des  Wassers  in  Glaserueii 
Gefassen,  etc.  Leipsic,  3746,  c.  x.  (Preface  dated  Sept.  6,  1746.) 


NOLLET  ON    LIGHTNING.  573 

ill  sulphurous,  mercurial  and  nitrous  vapors,  the  particles 
of  which,  rising  and  falling,  are  continually  rubbing 
against  one  another.  The  rubbing  of  the  sulphurous 
particles  generates  electric  matter,  which  may  lie  quiet 
until  some  chance  shock  develops  the  conditions  for  dis- 
charge and  explosion,  and  then  the  sulphurous  and  nitrous 
vapors  are  burned,  and  there  is  besides  a  conduction  of 
electricity  along  the  particles  which  are  non-electric. 
This  is  the  substance  of  a  long  and  somewhat  obscure 
dissertation  which  ends  with  the  statement  : 

"It  appears,  therefore,  that  the  electric  sparks  which 
through  art  may  be  excited  are  the  same  in  material, 
nature  and  mode  of  production  as  the  lightning  flashes 
and  strokes,  and  that  the  only  difference  exists  in  the 
relative  strengths  and  weaknesses  of  their  operation." 

Such  was  the  development  of  the  idea  in  England  and 
Germany.  In  France,  nearly  two  years  later  (August  9, 
1748),  Abbe*  Nollet  published  a  treatise  on  physics1  in 
which,  in  due  course,  he  deals  with  the  nature  of  light- 
ning. He  describes  the  "  matter  of  thunder  "  as  a  u  mix- 
ture of  exhalations  capable  of  self-ignition  on  fermentation 
or  by  shock,  and  the  pressure  of  clouds  which  the  winds 
violently  agitate  and  drive  together.  When  a  consider- 
able portion  of  this  mixture  takes  fire,  it  causes  an  ex- 
plosion stronger  or  weaker  according  to  the  quantity  or 
the  nature  of  the  ignited  materials,  or  according  to  the 
obstacles  which  present  themselves  to  its  sudden  ex- 
pansion." He  regards  also  the  lightning-stroke  as  due  to 
an  ignited  gas  which  always  rends  the  cloud  like  an  ex- 
plosive bomb.  With  this  theory,  however,  he  is  not 
satisfied,  and  merely  gives  it  as  the  one  which  is  generally 
accepted.  Then  he  adds  the  following  oft-quoted  passage: 

"If  any  one  should  take  upon  him  to  prove  from  a  well- 
connected  comparison  of  phenomena,  that  thunder  is  in 
the  hands  of  nature  what  electricity  is  in  ours,  that  the 
wonders  which  we  now  exhibit  at  our  pleasure  are  little 

1  Nollet:  Le9ons  de  Physique.     Paris,  1746,  vol.  iv.,  315. 


574         TH^  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

imitations  of  those  great  effects  which  frighten  us,  and 
that  the  whole  depends  upon  the  same  mechanism;  if  it  is 
to  be  demonstrated  that  a  cloud,  prepared  by  the  action 
of  the  winds,  by  heat,  by  a  mixture  of  exhalations,  etc.,  is 
opposite  to  a  terrestrial  object;  that  this  is  the  electrized 
body,  and  at  a  certain  proximity  from  that  which  is  not: 
I  avow  that  this  idea,  if  it  was  well  supported,  would  give 
me  a  great  deal  of  pleasure;  and  in  support  of  it,  how 
many  specious  reasons  present  themselves  to  a  man  who 
is  well  acquainted  with  electricity.  The  universality  of 
the  electric  matter,  the  readiness  of  its  action,  its  inflam- 
mability and  its  activity  in  giving  fire  to  other  bodies,  the 
property  of  striking  bodies  externally  and  internally,  even 
to  their  smallest  parts,  the  remarkable  example  we  have 
of  this  effect  in  the  experiment  of  Leyden,  the  idea  which 
we  might  truly  adopt  in  supposing  a  greater  degree  of 
electric  power,  etc. ;  all  these  points  of  analogy,  which  I 
have  been  some  time  meditating,  begin  to  make  me  be- 
lieve that  one  might,  by  taking  electricity  for  the  model, 
form  to  oneself  in  relation  to  thunder  and  lightning  more 
perfect  and  more  probable  ideas  than  such  as  have  been 
offered  hitherto." 

This  was  written  in  the  year  1748.  It  adds  nothing  new 
toward  the  solution  of  the  question  of  whether  the  light- 
ning and  electricity  are  the  same  or  even  similar.  It  is 
simply  to  the  effect  that  the  keen  and  skilful  electrician 
who  wrote  it  has  concluded  that  the  arguments  before  him 
are  sufficient,  in  his  opinion,  to  warrant  some  one  in  be- 
ginning experiments  to  determine  whether  the  idea  has 
any  foundation  in  truth  or  not.  It  certainly  does  not  aver 
that  he  himself  has  done  anything  in  the  premises  beyond 
meditating,  or  has  made  a  single  experiment  in  pursuit  of 
the  object,  or  even  knows  what  experiments  to  make  or 
how  to  attack  the  matter.  The  sum  and  substance  of  it 
all  is  that  the  problem  is  not  on  its  face  absurd  and  is 
worth  investigating. 

Such,  in  brief,  were  the  conditions  which  existed  when 


FRANKLIN   ON    LIGHTNING.  575 

Franklin  began  his  immortal  work.  Yet  it  has  been  con- 
tended, over  and  over  again,  that  there  was  really  nothing 
left  for  Franklin  to  do;  that  if  Gray  and  Wall  had  not  sub- 
stantially discovered  the  identity  of  electricity  and  light- 
ning, Nollet  (for  Freke  and  Winkler  seem  to  have  been 
generally  overlooked)  certainly  did  so.  So  easy  is  it  thus 
to  argue,  when  stimulated  by  pride  of  opinion  and  inter- 
national rivalries. 


Of  the  rise  and  progress  of  the  idea  in  Europe  Franklin 
probably  had  no  knowledge.  In  I7371  he  quotes  with  ap- 
proval the  theory  of  Dr.  Lister,  that  "the  material  cause 
of  thunder,  lightning  and  earthquakes  is  one  and  the 
same,  namely,  'the  inflammable  breath  of  the  pyrites, 
which  is  a  subtle  sulphur  and  takes  fire  of  itself.'  "  Lister 
regarded  thunder  and  lightning  as  due  to  sulphur  fired  in 
the  air,  and  earthquakes  to  the  same  substance  ignited 
underground.  "Why  there  may  not  be  thunder  and  light- 
ning underground  in  some  vast  repositories,"  comments 
Franklin,  "I  see  no  reason,  especially  if  we  reflect  that 
the  matter  which  composes  the  noisy  vapor  above  us  exists 
in  much  larger  quantities  underground."  The  conception 
of  the  electrical  nature  of  lightning  seems  to  have  come  to 
him  at  the  very  outset  of  his  electrical  studies,  and  then 
to  have  been  formulated  in  writing;  but  he  refrained  from 
communicating  it  to  Collinson  until  experiment  brought 
him  assurance.  Then,  in  the  early  summer  of  1749,  he 
despatched  the  first  of  the  two  famous  papers  in  which  his 
discovery  is  made  known  to  the  world. 

The  theory  developed  in  this  essay  is  interesting,  not 
because  of  its  inherent  truth — for  Franklin  himself  aban- 
doned it  not  long  afterwards — but  as  showing  the  path 
over  which  his  mind  moved.  It  furnishes,  moreover,  a 
striking  instance  of  the  deductive,  as  distinguished  from 
the  inductive,  method  of  reasoning.  The  ocean  is  assumed 

1  Pennsylvania  Gazette. 


576          THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

to  be  a  compound  of  water  particles  (non-electric)  and  salt 
particles  (electric  per  se),  which,  rubbing  together,  pro- 
duce electrical  fire,  which  collects  on  the  surface  and  is 
luminous  at  night.  It  is  also  assumed  that  because  the 
surface  is  electrified  the  particles  of  water  are  repelled,  and 
these,  rising,  carry  with  them  the  electrical  fire  and  form 
clouds  which  retain  their  electrified  state  until  an  oppor- 
tunity arises  for  them  to  communicate  their  fire  to  other 
bodies. 

This  is  obviously  pure  supposition,  although  a  remark- 
ably bold  and  dexterous  one,  as  we  shall  see  by  following  it 
a  little  further. 

The  electrified  cloud  is  swept  over  the  land  by  the  wind. 
It  encounters  a  mountain  which,  being  less  electrified, 
attracts  it.  The  electrical  fire  at  once  leaves  the  mass  of 
vapor,  with  a  sudden  flash  and  report,  while  the  particles 
of  water  instantly  coalesce  and  fall  in  rain.  If  a  succes- 
sion of  such  clouds  become 'dammed  by  a  mountain  ridge, 
then  the  first  cloud,  after  yielding  its  own  fire  to  the  peaks, 
takes  the  fire  of  the  second  cloud,  and  thus  the  fire  passes 
from  cloud  to  cloud  as  far  back  as  they  may  extend.  Like 
effects  occur  when  an  electrified  cloud,  rising  from  the  sea, 
meets  a  non-electrified  cloud  rising  from  the  land — the 
particles  of  the  first  cloud  open  on  losing  their  fire,  the 
particles  of  the  second  close  on  receiving  it,  and  then  fol- 
lows a  concussion,  a  flash  and  downpour. 

Such  is  the  bridge  which  Franklin  built.  It  may  be 
asked  wherein  it  differed  from  the  equally  ideal  structures 
which  Winkler  and  Freke  had  reared.  In  this;  that  it  led 
somewhere.  All  three  suppositions  were  far  wide  of  the 
truth — all  three  frail  and  imperfect;  but  two  of  them  were 
mere  piers  jutting  out  into  an  unknown  gulf,  while  the 
third  spanned  it,  at  least  long  enough  for  some  knowledge 
to  be  gained  of  the  new  land  beyond. 

Now  Franklin  moves  forward  beyond  all  the  world,  and 
the  result  is  best  given  in  his  own  quaint  words: 

uAs  electrified  clouds  pass  over  a  country,  high  hills 


FRANKUN   ON   LIGHTNING.  577 

and  high  trees,  lofty  towers,  spires,  masts  of  ships,  chim- 
neys, etc.,  as  so  many  prominences  and  points,  draw  the 
electrical  fire  and  the  whole  cloud  discharges  there. 

"Dangerous  therefore,  is  it  to  take  shelter  under  a  tree 
during  a  thunder-gust.  It  has  been  fatal  to  many,  both 
man  and  beasts. 

"It  is  safer  to  be  in  the  open  field  for  another  reason. 
When  the  clothes  are  wet,  if  a  flash  in  its  way  to  the 
ground  should  strike  your  head,  it  may  run  in  the  water 
over  the  surface  of  your  body;  whereas  if  your  clothes  are 
dry,  it  would  go  through  the  body,  because  the  blood  and 
other  humors  containing  so  much  water  are  more  ready 
conductors.  Hence  a  wet  rat  cannot  be  killed  by  the  ex- 
ploding electrical  bottle,  when  a  dry  rat  may." 

The  great  generalization  is  here — yet  encumbered  with 
a  tremendous  "if."  The  course  of  orderly  evolution  from 
his  very  first  experiment,  which  proved  the  capacity  of 
points,  when  placed  in  the  vicinity  of  electrified  bodies,  to 
draw  off  the  electric  fire  noiselessly  and  quietly,  had  now 
led  him  to  the  belief  that  the  same  result  would  happen  if 
the  electrified  body  were  a  cloud  and  the  point  a  tree  or 
spire;  if  lightning  and  electricity  were  the  same,  if  both 
were  under  control  of  the  same  laws. 

But  where  was  the  physical  proof?  Where  was  the 
evidence  that  clouds  are  ever  electrified,  or  that  the  fire  in 
the  sky  is  an  electric  flash,  or  that  there  is  in  fact  any 
electricity  in  the  atmosphere  at  all  ?  He  had  merely  sup- 
posed all  this.  No  one  knew  better  than  he  that  the  sea- 
born clouds,  bursting  with  electrical  fire,  floated  about 
only  in  his  imagination.  No  one  could  better  anticipate 
the  derision  which  would  be  provoked  by  the  unsupported 
assertion  that  the  fierce  blazes  of  the  thunder-gust  lay 
latent  in  the  soft  depths  of  the  snowy  couriers  of  the  air, 
ready  to  obey  the  same  control  as  the  little  sparks  and 
crackles  yielded  by  his  globes  and  jars.  There  was  the 
crux,  //"the  lightning  be  electricity,  then — but  is  jt? 

How  was  that  to  be  found  out? 
37 


578         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN  ELECTRICITY. 

From  the  bold  conjectures  of  Wall  or  Gray  or  Hanks- 
bee?  From  the  fruitless  hypotheses  of  Winkler  or  Freke 
— no  better,  if  as  good  as  his  own?  From  Nollet's  wish 
that  somebody  would  attempt  the  test?  Do  not  all  the 
prophecies  after  the  event  which  Franklin's  detractors 
have  solemnly  made  on  the  strength  of  these  prior  specula- 
tions seem  destitute  of  substantial  basis  ? 

Whether  Franklin  at  the  outset  fully  realized  the  mag- 
nitude of  the  consequences  depending  upon  the  resolution 
of  the  question,  may  be  doubted.  A  more  emotional 
nature  than  his  might  have  done  so  and  been  overwhelmed 
when  success  became  apparent.  As  it  was,  he  probably 
never  looked  upon  himself  as  one  set  apart  to  dispel  a 
terror  of  the  ages,  to  destroy  the  power  of  a  scourge  which 
had  lashed  all  humanity  since  the  world  was  peopled:  he 
was  prosaically  trying  to  utilize  the  new  knowledge. 
Furthermore,  if  there  is  any  one  characteristic  of  the  man 
which  shines  forth  in  all  his  writings,  at  least  until  great 
age  weakened  his  faculties,  it  is  that  of  thinking  straight. 
He  sees  the  problem  before  him  clean  and  clear — he  never 
loses  sight  of  it — he  never  grows  misty  or  confused — he 
makes  for  the  goal  steadily,  persistently,  and  by  what 
seems  to  him  to  be  the  most  direct  path.  And,  at  the 
very  threshold,  he  differs  from  European  philosophers. 

Look  back  at  their  experiments  and  their  theories. 
Every  one  of  them  has  his  eyes  fixed  on  his  globes  and  his 
jars.  Every  one  of  them  is  making  the  electricity  which 
he  produces  the  model.  Every  one  of  them  is  hunting 
for  resemblances  to  the  lightning  in  exhausted  receivers  or 
on  the  edges  of  wet  tea  cups,  or  in  his  little  circuits.  And 
the  most  they  got  out  of  it  all  was  that  the  little  sparks 
and  the  little  crackles  and  the  little  glow  and  the  light- 
ning seemed  to  be  of  the  same  "nature" — the  meaning- 
less answer  of  both  the  ignorant  and  the  philosopher. 
Their  question  was — is  electricity  lightning  in  miniature? 

Such  Franklin  did  not  do.  He  turned  from  the  bottles 
and  the  wires  and  looked  straight  into  the  face  of  Nature. 


WHAT   IS   LIGHTNING?  579 

Of  a  summer's  evening  lie  watched  the  soft  radiance 
glimmer  fitfully  from  one  pink  vapor  wreath  to  another, 
or  silently  bathe  the  distant  horizon  again  and  again  in 
golden  glow.  He  saw  the  cold  fires  of  the  Aurora  waving 
like  fingers  beckoning  men  to  find  them  in  the  frozen 
North-land.  He  saw  the  great,  heavy  clouds  sweeping  in 
from  the  sea  and  forming  their  serried  columns  upon  the 
mountain-flanks.  He  saw  them  crowd  into  the  gorges, 
and  break  against  the  peaks,  rolling  back  in  scattered 
fragments  to  form  new  cohorts  to  hurl  themselves  once 
more  upon  the  eternal  rock.  He  saw  the  lightnings  shiv- 
ering and  seething  in  their  fleecy  masses,  or  leaping  out, 
hissing  and  snake-like,  to  rend  the  stone  battlements  and 
send  the  avalanches  rattling  down  the  precipices.  He 
heard  the  crash  of  the  warring  forces  of  earth  and  sky,  the 
fury  and  turmoil  of  the  never-ending  battle  of  the  clouds 
and  the  mountains,  roaring  and  resounding  from  steep  to 
steep  until  its  deep  diapason  died  away  amid  a  thousand 
echoes  and  left  the  earth  shuddering. 

The  great  poet  of  his  race  had  already  idealized  the  spirit 
of  the  air  that  did  these  things.  Franklin's  invocation 
lay  not  to  the  imprisoned  imps  in  the  bottles,  but  to 
"Ariel  and  all  his  quality." 

All  through  the  summer  of  1749  he  kept  at  work,  reso- 
lutely holding  himself  aloof  from  political  allurements. 
Kinnersley  helped  him.  His  procedure  is  methodic;  his 
trials  and  conclusions  are  noted  without  a  shadow  of  emo- 
tion or  a  sign  that  their  author  knew  himself  to  be  speedily 
Hearing  his  goal.  His  question  was  not,  What  is  electric- 
ity? but,  What  is  lightning?  His  object,  a  physical  mode 
of  making  nature  herself  answer;  not  a  collection  of  anal- 
ogies and  resemblances  from  which  a  reply  might,  with 
more  or  less  certainty,  be  inferred.  These,  however,  it 
was  necessary  to  gather  in  order  to  perceive  what  the  cru- 
cial experiment  ought  to  be.  Therefore,  he  seeks  out 
every  feature  in  which  the  electrical  effects  produced  by 
his  machines  agree  with  the  lightning,  and  sets  them  all 


580         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

down  categorically.  Here  is  the  list  noted  in  his  diary 
under  date  of  November  7th,  1749  : 

"  Electrical  fluid  agrees  with  lightning  in  these  particu- 
lars: i.  Giving  light.  2.  Color  of  the  light.  3.  Crooked 
direction.  4.  Swift  motion.  5.  Being  conducted  by 
metals.  6.  Crack  or  noise  in  exploding.  7.  Subsisting 
in  water  or  ice.  8.  Rending  bodies  it  passes  through.  9. 
Destroying  animals.  10.  Melting  metals,  n.  Firing  in- 
flammable substances.  12.  Sulphurous  smell." 

In  all  these  things  the  agreement  of  lightning  and  elec- 
tricity is  perceptible  by  the  senses.  Yet  it  does  not  nec- 
essarily follow  that  they  are  identical.  That  can  only  be 
resolved  by  determining  whether  they  obey  the  same  laws 
under  the  same  conditions. 

There  is  one  fact  which  he  has  recognized  to  his  com- 
plete satisfaction,  and  that  is,  that  the  so-called  electrical 
fluid  of  his  jars  and  globes  is  attracted  and  drawn  off  by 
points.  Here  there  is  a  direct  apparent  control  of  the 
fluid.  He  has  no  evidence  that  lightning  possesses  what 
he  calls  a  similar  property  of  being  attracted.  But  if  it 
has,  if  it  will  come  out  of  a  cloud  to  go  to  a  point,  as  the 
electric  fluid  seemingly  comes  out  of  his  glass  globe,  that 
shows  that  the  same  fluid  is  in  the  cloud  and  in  the  glass. 
The  necessary  test  for  the  identity  of  lightning  and  elec- 
tricity is  now  plain.  He  ends  his  minute  thus:  "Since 
they  agree  in  all  the  particulars  wherein  we  can  already 
compare  them,  is  it  not  probable  that  they  agree  likewise 
in  this?  L,et  the  experiment  be  made!" 

In  July  1750,  Franklin  sends  to  Collinson  the  most  elab- 
orate and  longest  of  all  his  communications.  It  is  one 
which  he  regarded  as  of  especial  importance,  and  for  that 
reason  asks  Collinson  to  convey  it  to  "our  honorable  Pro- 
prietary," to  show  to  him  that  his  "generous  present  of  a 
compleat  electrical  apparatus"  had  been  put  to  good  use. 
In  it,  he  describes  the  making  of  the  proposed  experiment, 
though  only  in  miniature.  But  the  results  so  completely 
confirm  his  anticipations,  that  he  is  willing  to  base  upon 


FRANKLIN'S  EXPERIMENTS.  .  ,s8i 

it  definite  instructions  how  to  make  the  actual  trial  itself, 
and  to  leave  the  performance  to  others,  whose  facilities  for 
carrying  it  out  might  be  better  than  his  own.  This  self- 
abnegation  shows  itself  every  where  throughout  Franklin's 
scientific  career.  No  one  could  have  been  more  destitute 
of  pride  of  opinion  than  he,  no  one  more  totally  free  from  the 
desire  of  profit  in  any  form  to  himself,  no  one  more  purely 
single-hearted  in  the  devotion  of  his  genius  to  the  good  of 
all  men. 

The  little  experiment,  as  usual,  was  made  with  homely 
apparatus.  He  hung  up  an  old-fashioned  pair  of  brass 
scales  by  a  twisted  cord  attached  to  the  middle  of  the  beam 
so  that  the  pans,  as  the  cord  untwisted,  would  move  round 
in  a  horizontal  circle.  He  suspended  the  pans  from  the 
beam  by  silk  threads  instead  of  the  usual  chains,  so  as  to 
insulate  them.  On  the  floor,  and  in  such  position  that  the 
scale-pans  would  move  over  it  in  their  path,  he  set  up  an 
old  metal  punch,  on  end.  Then  he  electrified  one  scale- 
pan. 

Now,  as  this  pan  came  over  the  punch,  it  was  attracted 
and  moved  down  to  the  iron,  and  when  near  enough  the 
charge  would  pass  from  pan  to  punch  with  a  snap  and 
crack.  But  if  a  sewing-needle  were  u  stuck  on  the  end  of 
the  punch,  its  point  upwards,  the  scale,  instead  of  drawing 
nigh  to  the  punch  and  snapping,  discharges  its  fire  silently 
through  the  point  and  rises  higher  than  the  punch.  Nay, 
even  if  the  needle  be  placed  upon  the  floor  near  the  punch, 
its  point  upward,  the  end  of  the  punch,  though  so  much 
higher  than  the  needle,  will  not  attract  the  scale  and  re- 
ceive its  fire,  for  the  needle  will  get  it  and  convey  it  away 
before  it  comes  nigh  enough  for  the  punch  to  act."  Of 
course,  the  scale  pan  here  represented  the  electrified 
cloud,  and  the  punch  the  building  or  mountain  which 
might  be  struck  by  the  spark,  did  not  the  needle  draw  it 
harmlessly  off. 

This  description  is  the  preface  to  the  two  famous  para- 
graphs which  were  destined  to  place  Franklin  first  among 
living  philosophers. 


582         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

UI  say,"  he  declares,  "if  these  things  are  so,  may  not 
the  knowledge  of  this  power  of  points  be  of  use  to  man- 
kind in  preserving  houses,  churches,  ships,  &c.,  from  the 
stroke  of  lightning, by  directing  us  to  fix  on  the  highest 
parts  of  those  edifices  upright  rods  of  iron  made  sharp  as  a 
needle,  and  gilt  to  prevent  rusting,  and  from  the  foot  of 
those  rods  a  wire  down  the  outside  of  the  building  into  the 
ground,  or  down  round  one  of  the  shrouds  of  a  ship  and 
down  her  side  till  it  reaches  the  water  ?  Would  not  these 
pointed  rods  probably  draw  the  electrical  fire  silently  out 
of  a  cloud  before  it  came  nigh  enough  to  strike,  and 
thereby  secure  us  from  that  most  sudden  and  terrible 
mischief? 

u  To  determine  the  question,  whether  the  clouds  that 
contain  the  lightning  are  electrified  or  not,  I  would  pro- 
pose an  experiment  to  be  tried  where  it  may  be  done  con- 
veniently. On  the  top  of  some  high  tower  or  steeple, 
place  a  kind  of  centry-box  big  enough  to  contain  a  man 
and  an  electrical  stand.  From  the' middle  of  the  stand  let 
an  iron  rod  rise  and  pass  bending  out  of  the  door,  and  then 
upright  twenty  or  thirty  feet,  pointed  very  sharp  at  the 
end.  If  the  electrical  stand  be  kept  clean  and  dry,  a  man 
standing  on  it  when  such  clouds  are  passing  low,  might  be 
electrified  and  afford  sparks,  the  rod  drawing  fire  to  him 
from  a  cloud.  If  any  danger  to  the  man  should  be  ap- 
prehended (though  I  think  there  would  be  none)  let  him 
stand  on  the  floor  of  his  box  and  now  and  then  bring  near 
to  the  rod  the  loop  of  a  wire  that  has  one  end  fastened  to 
the  leads,  he  holding  it  by  a  wax  handle  ;  so  the  sparks,  if 
the  rod  is  electrified,  will  strike  from  the  rod  to  the  wire, 
and  not  affect  him." 

When  Collinson  received  that  paper,  he  recognized  at 
once  that  here  was  no  ordinary  discovery,  and  that  how- 
ever ingenious  or  interesting  Franklin's  ideas  may  hitherto 
have  been  concerning  the  nature  of  the  electric  fire,  the 
behavior  of  jars  and  such  matters,  this  announcement  re- 
duced every  past  item  of  electrical  knowledge  to  compara- 


THE   PUBLICATION   OF   FRANKLIN'S   LETTERS.        583 

tive  insignificance.  For  not  only  was  this  the  first  great 
utilization  of  everything  that  had  been  learned  from  the 
rubbed  amber  and  its  posterity,  but  the  importance  of  it 
as  a  safeguard  to  life  and  property  was  inestimable. 
Hitherto  the  Royal  Society  had  not  been  unfavorably 
disposed  to  Franklin,  and  even  Watson,  in  appropriating 
his  honors,  did  so  in  a  considerate  and  even  laudatory 
way.  But  when  Collinson  came  with  this  story  and 
wanted  the  Society  to  consider  it,  he  met  with  prompt  re- 
buff and  even  derision.  The  whole  matter  was  regarded 
as  too  visionary  for  serious  discussion  by  the  Society, 
whatever  individual  members  might  think  about  it.1 

The  calm  indifference  with  which  Franklin  accepted 
this  turn  of  affairs  found  no  reflection  in  the  breast  of  Col- 
linson, who,  on  the  contrary,  developed  a  most  unquaker- 
like  spirit  of  antagonism.  He  was  now  determined  that 
not  only  should  these  last  papers  of  the  American  phil- 
osopher be  published,  but  that  the  earlier  letters  already 
received  should  go  to  the  world,  whether  the  Royal  Society 
put  their  imprint  on  them  or  not.  And  to  this  he  was 
urgently  incited  by  Dr.  Fothergill,  who  cordially  under- 
took to  assist  him. 

So  he  offered  the  letters  to  Cave — Cave,  the  lordly 
owner  of  the  Gentleman's  Magazine;  Cave,  the  typical 
Grub  Street  publisher,  who  regarded  ^50  as  an  adequate 
bait  for  the  highest  literary  genius — the  Cave  of  Dr. 
Samuel  Johnson,  who  looked  upon  his  very  abode  at  St. 
John's  Gate  with  respectful  awe; — and  Cave  refused  them 
place  in  those  sacred  pages,  although  he  was  filling  the 
latter  with  long  diatribes  from  nobodies  about  the  latest 
humbugs  in  u medical  (!)  electricity."  But  Cave  had  an 
eye  to  profit,  and  while  unwilling  to  imperil  the  fortunes 
of  his  magazine  by  admitting  such  heterodox  matter, 

1  Nevertheless  a  brisf  notice  of  Franklin's  electrified  cloud  theory 
found  place  in  the  transactions  very  shortly  afterwards,  through  a  report 
on  it  by  Dr.  William  Stukely,  who  had  heard  the  first  letter  to  Collinsou 
publicly  read  at  some  gathering.  Phil.  Trans.,  496,  601. 


584         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN  ELECTRICITY. 

he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  not  issue  it  as  a  separate 
publication — price  two  shillings  and  six  pence;  especially 
as  no  outlay  on  his  part  was  required,  and  all  the  revenue 
was  to  come  solely  to  him.  Thus  the  collection  came  to 
be  published  in  1751. 

Meanwhile  Franklin  was  pursuing  the  even  tenor  of  his 
way,  and  not  only  all  the  Philadelphians,  but  the  people 
of  far-distant  Boston  and  New  York  and  Charles  Town 
were  manifesting  increased  interest  in  his  astonishing 
proceedings.  Cadwallader  Golden,  in  New  York,  had 
opened  correspondence  with  him  and  had  become  prac- 
tically his  disciple;  so  had  James  Bowdoin,  in  Boston, 
afterwards  Governor  of  the  colony.  If  his  house  had 
hitherto  been  a  rendezvous  for  all  the  sight-seers  in  Phila- 
delphia, it  was  now  more  attractive  than  ever.  He  killed 
turkeys  with  the  discharge  from  large  Leyden  jars,  and 
once,  by  accident,  in  the  same  way,  nearly  killed  himself. 
To  Golden  he  writes  that  he  has  "melted  brass  pins  and 
needles,  inverted  the  poles  of  the  magnetic  needle,  given 
a  magnetism  and  polarity  to  needles  that  had  none,  and 
fired  dry  gunpowder  by  the  electric  spark."  He  dwells 
upon  the  powerful  effects  of  the  L,eyden  jar  battery,  and 
adds:  "So  we  are  got  beyond  the  skill  of  Rabelais'  devils 
of  two  years  old,  who  .  .  .  had  only  learned  to  thunder 
and  lighten  a  little  round  the  head  of  a  cabbage."  Then 
people  got  the  notion,  probably  from  news  of  some  curious 
discoveries  said  to  have  been  made  in  Italy,  that  electricity 
was  the  universal  panacea;  and  Franklin  found  himself 
besieged  by  invalids.  Governor  Belcher,  of  New  Jersey 
(aged  70,  drinks  small  beer  and  half  a  bottle  of  Madeira 
daily,  and  is  "tremulous"),  begs  Franklin  to  send  him 
the  electrical  apparatus  in  order  that  he  may  treat  himself, 
and  bewails  its  breakage  on  the  road.1  Paralytics  come  to 
him  in  large  numbers,  and  he  gave  them  all  the  same 
remedy — the  united  shock  of  two  six-gallon  glass  jars 
through  the  affected 'limb,  three  times  a  day;  but  he  never 

•N.  Y.  Col.  Records,  viii.,  7. 


KINNERSLEY' s  LECTURES.  585 

saw  any  advantage  after  the  fifth  day,  when  the  patients 
"became  discouraged,  went  home,  and  in  a  short  time  re- 
lapsed." In  fact,  Franklin  is  not  disposed  to  accord  to  his 
shocks  even  the  first  small  improvement  which  appeared ; 
which  he  thinks  rather  due  to  the  "exercise  in  the 
patients'  journey  and  coining  daily  to  my  house,  or  from 
the  spirits  given  by  the  hope  of  success  enabling  them  to 
exert  more  strength  in  their  limbs."1 

By  this  time  he  determines  that  something  must  be 
done  to  assuage  popular  curiosity  in  a  more  wholesale 
manner.  Kinnersley,  who  had  been  assisting  him  in  his 
experiments,  needed  remunerative  employment.  He  was 
well  familiar  with  all  Franklin  had  accomplished.  The 
plan  developed  is  told  in  the  following  advertisement 
which  soon  appeared  in  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette: 

"Notice  is  hereby  given  to  the  Curious  that  on  Wednes- 
day next,  Mr.  Kinnersley  proposes  to  begin  a  course  of 
Experiments  on  the  Newly  Discovered  Electrical  Fire, 
containing  not  only  the  most  curious  of  those  that  have 
been  made  and  published  in  Europe,  but  a  considerable 
number  of  new  ones  lately  made  in  this  City,  to  be  accom- 
panied with  methodical  lectures  on  the  nature  and  proper- 
ties of  that  wonderful  element." 

There  were  two  of  these  discourses  which  Franklin  had 
written.  Kinnersley  himself  fitted  up  the  apparatus  with 
characteristic  ingenuity,  and  thus  equipped,  the  first  lec- 
turer on  science  in  the  New  World  began  his  tour.  From 
Philadelphia  he  went  to  Boston,  where  the  venerable  walls 
of  Faneuil  Hall  resounded  with  the  cracks  and  snaps  of 
his  jars  and  globes,  long  before  they  echoed  the  impas- 
sioned eloquence  of  the  orators  of  the  Revolution.  His 
experiments,  writes  Governor  Bowdoin  to  Franklin,  "have 
been  greatly  pleasing  to  all  sorts  of  people  that  have  seen 
them."  In  New  York  and  in  Newport  the  exhibitions 
created  a  genuine  sensation — the  citizens  especially  mar- 
better  to  Priugle,  Dec.  21,  1757. 


586          THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

veling  at  his  showing  of  how  houses  and  barns  could  be 
(perhaps)  protected  from  the  lightning. 

In  the  intervals  of  his  lectures,  Kinnersley  used  his  ap- 
paratus for  further  experimenting,  and  in  the  spring  of 
1752,  he  re-discovered  the  different  electricities  of  sulphur 
and  glass — the  resinous  and  vitreous  electricities  of  Dufay 
— concerning  which  neither  he  nor  Franklin  appears  to 
have  had  any  earlier  knowledge.  He  communicated  this 
at  once  to  Franklin,  who  repeated  the  experiments,  and  at 
first  concluded  that  the  different  attractions  and  repulsions 
observed  proceeded  rather  from  the  greater  or  smaller 
quantities  of  the  fire  obtained  from  different  bodies,  than 
from  the  fire  being  of  different  kinds  or  having  different  di- 
rections; but  subsequently  he  conceded  that  a  glass  globe 
charges  positively  and  a  sulphur  one  negatively.  He  did 
not  probe  into  this,  however,  with  his  accustomed  energy. 
Another  and  weightier  matter  was  on  his  mind,  and  he 
had  no  relish  for  new  research  until  the  question  which  it 
raised  could  be  settled.  His  letters  had  been  published  in 
Europe,  but  as  yet  no  one  had  made  the  experiment.  Could 
he  not  do  it  himself? 

He  had  already  canvassed  the  possibilities  of  doing  so, 
but  had  given  up  the  idea  because  there  were  no  hills  or 
other  natural  elevations  about  Philadelphia,  and  no  edifices 
higher  than  ordinary  dwelling-houses.  He  believed  it 
necessary  to  place  his  pointed  rod  on  some  lofty  peak  or 
high  tower;  but  in  all  Philadelphia  there  was  not  even  a 
church-spire  ;  indeed,  he  might  have  traversed  the  whole 
province  of  Pennsylvania  without  finding  one.  True,  the 
vestry  of  Christ  Church  by  slow  degrees  had  made  up  its 
collective  mind  some  time  to  build  a  steeple,  but  that 
notion  had  faded  into  the  dim  distance  when  the  war  broke 
out.  Franklin  was  now  seeking  to  revive  the  project.  A 
lottery  had  been  established  to  procure  the  needful  funds, 
both  for  the  structure  and  the  bells,  and  he  watched  with 
impatience  the  incoming  subscriptions  and  the  taking  of 
chances,  in  the  hope  that  enough  money  would  soon  be 


THE   FRENCH   LIGHTNING   ROD   EXPERIMENTS.       587 

raised  to  erect  liis  long-desired  pinnacle.  But  the  receipts 
were  small  and  their  advent  slow.  Waiting  was  tedious — 
all  other  experiments  seemed  so  tame  beside  this  one. 
Kinnersley  was  drawing  off  the  popular  excitement  ;  the  at- 
tractions of  political  life  began  to  look  once  again  very  fas- 
cinating. 

The  summer  came — a  bad  season  for  electrical  experi- 
menting, as  he  was  well  aware.  He  would  put  it  all  aside 
until  the  old  interest  should  revive  with  different  condi- 
tions, when — the  news  came  from  across  the  sea  that  the  ex- 
periment had  been  tried!  Tried  by  the  first  philosophers 
in  France  under  the  auspices  of  the  French  King  himself. 
Tried  with  magnificent  and  unquestionable  success,  and 
that  all  Europe  was  ringing  with  it. 

He  needed  all  his  philosophy  now. 

How  had  they  done  it? 

Cave,  with  characteristic  prudence,  had  issued  but  a  few 
copies  of  the  pamphlet  containing  Franklin's  letters  ;  and 
now,  as  nearly  a  year  had  elapsed,  and  no  notice  of  it  had 
been  taken,  was  doubtless  applauding  his  own  foresight. 
Some  one,  however,  had  sent  a  copy  to  De  Buffon  in  Paris, 
and  he  perceived  instantly  that  here  was  something  both 
extraordinarily  novel  and  extraordinarily  strange.  He 
persuaded  D'Alibard  to  translate  the  work  into  French — a 
task  very  imperfectly  done,  but  not  so  obscurely  as  to  pre- 
vent the  quick-witted  Frenchmen  from  seeing  the  import- 
ant nature  of  the  discoveries,  and  the  logical  skill  which 
had  been  exhibited  in  their  announcement.  D'Alibard's 
book  sold  tremendously — doubtless  to  the  agony  of  Cave, 
who  got  no  profit  out  of  it.  The  probability  of  success 
of  the  Philadelphia!!  experiments  was  the  staple  of  con- 
versation everywhere  ;  from  the  meetings  of  the  phil- 
osophers it  spread  to  the  gatherings  of  the  beau  monde — 
from  the  salons  to  the  Court — to  the  King — and  the  result 
was  his  Majesty's  command  that  Franklin's  experiments 
should  be  repeated  before  him. 


588         THE   INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

The  Duke  D'Ayen  placed  at  the  King's  disposal  his 
chateau  at  St.  Germain.  De  Lor,  master  of  experimental 
philosophy,  was  selected  to  make  the  exhibition,  and  Louis 
watched  with  the  keenest  interest  the  great  sparks  from  the 
cascade  (series)  battery  and  the  performances  of  the  various 
ingenious  contrivances  which  Franklin  describes  in  his 
early  letters  to  Collinson. 

Meanwhile,  De  Lor,  De  Buffon  and  D'Alibard,  having 
got  together,  found  themselves  agreeing  that  the  experi- 
ment of  all  others  was  that  of  the  pointed  rod.  They  did 
not  show  that  to  the  King,  doubtful  perhaps  of  its  success; 
but  De  Lor  and  D'Alibard  each  separately  undertook  to 
test  the  matter. 

D'Alibard,  in  a  garden  at  Marly  la  Ville,  about  eighteen 
miles  from  Paris,  had  erected  a  sharply-pointed  iron  rod 
an  inch  in  diameter  and  forty  feet  high.  This  rod  was 
insulated  at  its  base,  which  rested  upon  a  table,  arranged 
within  a  small  cabin,  to  the  posts  of  which  last  the  rod 
was  also  secured  by  silk  ropes.  A  thunder  storm  not  being 
immediately  at  hand,  D'Alibard  employed  an  old  dragoon, 
one  Corffier,  to  watch  the  apparatus,  and  provided  conve- 
niently at  hand  a  brass  wire  mounted  in  a  glass  bottle  for 
a  handle,  with  which  to  draw  off  the  sparks  from  the  rod, 
if  it  should  become  electrified,  as  he  hoped  would  be  the 
case.  Some  days  elapsed,  and  when  the  thunder-gust  did 
come,  Corffier  was  on  guard  alone.  Instead  of  waiting  for 
D'Alibard's  arrival,  he  concluded  to  try  the  experiment 
himself,  and  so,  grasping  the  wire,  he  presented  it  to  the  rod. 
The  sparks  flew,  with  loud  reports.  Corffier  dropped  the 
wire  in  terror,  and  shouted  to  his  neighbors  to  send  at  once 
for  the  village  priest,  for  the  fierce  flame  and  the  sulphur- 
ous odor  were  clearly  infernal. 

The  ecclesiastic  came  in  full  run,  with  the  villagers  in 
throngs  at  his  heels.  The  hail-storm  was  terrific,  but,  as 
all  believed  Corffier  had  been  killed,  no  one  minded  it. 
Corffier,  however,  was  found  uninjured,  and,  as  the  good 
Prior  of  Marly  had  no  fear  of  the  machinations  of  the  fiend, 


FRANKLIN'S  KITE  EXPERIMENT.  589 

lie  began  to  experiment  for  himself  by  drawing  sparks  with 
the  brass  wire. 

"I  repeated  the  experiment  at  least  six  times  in  about 
four  minutes  in  the  presence  of  many  persons,"  he  writes 
to  the  absent  D'Alibard,  uand  every  time  the  experiment 
lasted  the  space  of  a  pater  and  an  ave."  He  managed  to 
touch  the  rod  himself  and  got  a  rather  severe  shock;  but  he 
wrote  the  letter  to  D'Alibard  and  sent  it  off  by  Cornier  be- 
fore he  left  the  scene. 

"  Franklin's  idea  ceases  to  be  a  conjecture,"  says  D'Ali- 
bard, in  concluding  his  report  to  the  French  Academy — 
"  here  it  has  become  a  reality." 

De  Lor,  in  Paris,  followed,  on  May  i8th,  with  an  iron 
rod  99  feet  high,  from  which  he  drew  off  sparks  freely  dur- 
ing a  thunderstorm. 

Such  was  the  intelligence  which  reached  Franklin.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  imagine  the  amazement  with  which  he 
received  it.  True,  these  French  philosophers  had  osten- 
sibly made  the  experiment — but  how? 

With  rods,  one  of  which  would  not  overtop  buildings  in 
Philadelphia,  and  the  other,  though  twice  as  high,  still,  in 
his  belief,  far  from  being  sufficiently  lofty.  That  sparks 
had  been  drawn  from  rods  which  ended  in  the  air  close  to 
the  earth's  surface,  and  not  within  hundreds  of  feet  of  the 
clouds  was  not  conclusive.  This  was  the  experiment  in 
one  sense,  and  yet,  in  another,  it  was  not.  It  showed  that 
the  rods  had  become  electrified — but  not  necessarily  that 
the  lightning  had  electrified  them  or  had  passed  over  them. 

Again  the  question  pressed  upon  him — could  he  not 
make  the  test  himself?  This  time  a  way  flashed  across  his 
mind — one  of  the  boldest  conceptions  ever  imagined  by 
man.  Why  not  cause  the  fierce  fires  of  the  heavens  to  de- 
scend so  that  he  may  place  them  side  by  side  with  the  puny 
sparks  and  flashes  of  his  globes  and  jars — and  so  see  the 
identity?  Why  not  send  up  a  kite  into  the  very  heart  of  the 
thunder-cloud,  and  bring  the  lightning  down  on  its  cord? 


5QO         THE   INTELLECTUAL   RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

Two  light  strips  of  cedar  placed  crosswise,  and  a  large 
thin  silk  handkerchief  secured  to  them  at  its  corners — 
such  was  the  kite.  To  the  top  of  the  upright  stick  of  the 
cross  was  fastened  a  sharp  wire  about  a  foot  long.  The 
twine  was  of  the  usual  kind;  but  he  provided  a  piece  of 
silk  ribbon  and  a  key — the  first  to  attach  to  the  twine  and 
to  hold  in  his  hand  after  he  had  raised  the  kite,  as  some 
possible  protection  against  the  lightning  running  through 
his  body — the  other  to  be  secured  at  the  junction  of  ribbon 
and  twine,  to  serve  as  a  convenient  conductor  from  which 
to  draw  sparks — if  they  came. 

He  had  not  long  to  wait  for  a  thunderstorm  in  that  hot 
summer  weather.  As  he  saw  it  gathering  he  betook  him- 
self— accompanied  only  by  his  son,  then  a  young  man 
twenty-two  years  of  age — to  the  open  commons.  He  de- 
sired no  other  assistant — he  had  confided  his  intentions  to 
no  one  else.  The  experiments  of  the  Frenchmen  had  con- 
vinced them,  perhaps,  but  not  him.  He  proposed  to  be 
satisfied  now. 

It  has  been  said  that  he  kept  his  own  counsel  concern- 
ing this,  because  he  feared  ridicule  should  he  fail.  There 
is  no  basis  for  that.  Why  should  he,  who  had  borne 
already  with  perfect  equanimity  the  derision  of  the  Royal 
Society,  fear  more  of  it?  Many  a  time  before  he  had  done 
things,  many  a  time  afterwards  he  did  others,  which  made 
him  the  very  butt  of  sneers  and  scoffs;  but  his  serenity  re- 
mained unbroken.  Why  should  he  fear  ridicule  now  ? 
Nor  was  there  anything  else  that  he  feared — not  even 
death.  And  with  death  he  now  believed  he  was  to  stand 
face  to  face. 

All  his  past  work  had  taught  him  this.  He  had  seen 
the  furious  shock  blot  out  life  from  animals,  he  had  felt  it 
in  his  own  body  rack  him  almost  into  insensibility.  He 
had  said,  over  and  over  again  that  if  potent  enough  it 
would  be  instantly  fatal.  He  was  now  going  to  lead  into 
his  hand  the  fearful  fire  of  the  thunderbolt. 

He  knew  nothing   of  the  laws  of  conduction.     If  the 


IDENTITY  OF  LIGHTNING  AND  ELECTRICITY  PROVED.    591 

lightning  could  descend  that  cord,  How  much  of  it  would 
so  come  there  was  nothing  to  tell.  Every  presumption 
pointed  to  an  out-pour  of  living  flame  which  would  infalli- 
bly kill.  And  yet,  if  his  theory  was  right,  the  electrical 
fluid  should  be  drawn  from  the  cloud  and  flow  down  with 
harmless  vigor. 

No  man  ever  confronted  what  he  must  have  believed  to 
be  terrible  danger  with  more  superb  heroism.  No  man 
ever  led  a  forlorn  hope,  or  faced  a  hail  of  bullets,  with  more 
unflinching  bravery.  No  man  ever  so  calmly,  so  philo- 
sophically, staked  his  life  upon  his  faith. 

The  great  clouds  roll  up  from  the  horizon,  and  the  gusts 
grow  fitful  and  strong.  As  Franklin  and  his  boy  disen- 
tangle the  kite  from  its  cords  and  tail,  and  get  it  in  posi- 
tion for  ascent,  the  thunder  mutters  nearer,  and  the  rain 
begins  to  patter  upon  the  grass.  A  swishing  blast  comes 
over  the  meadows,  the  kite  feels  it  and  rises  swiftly, 
swooping  this  way  and  that  as  the  air-currents  catch  it. 
The  rain  now  falls  heavily,  and  the  mist  begins  to  close  in. 
There  is  a  friendly  shed  at  hand,  and  Franklin,  drenched, 
takes  refuge  under  it.  The  kite,  heavy  with  water,  is  sail- 
ing sluggishly,  except  when  the  gusts  set  it  moving  in 
spirals. 

A  huge  low-lying  black  cloud  traveling  over  him  sud- 
denly shoots  forth  forked  flame,  and  a  crash  of  thunder 
shakes  the  very  earth.  The  pour  is  now  in  sheets;  again 
the  blaze,  again  the  rattling  explosion.  The  kite  is  mov- 
ing upward,  for  Franklin  is  quickly  unwinding  the  cord. 
It  is  soaring  straight  into  the  black  mass,  from  which  the 
flashes  are  now  rapidly  coming,  and  in  which  it  soon 
becomes  invisible. 

Quietly  Franklin  is  arranging  the  silk  ribbon  and  the 
key.  This  done,  he  watches  the  cord  close  to  him.  There 
is  no  sign  yet  to  guide  him.  Has  he  failed  ?  Suddenly  he 
sees  the  little  loose  fibres  of  the  twine  erect  themselves. 
He  has  not  failed,  but  the  moment  has  come.  Without  a 
tremor  he  advances  his  knuckle  to  the  key.  And  then  a 


592         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE   IN   ELECTRICITY. 

little  crack,  a  little  spark — the  same  little  crack  and  the 
same  little  spark  which  he  had  taken  a  hundred  times 
from  his  glass  tube — and  the  great  discovery  is  complete, 
his  name  immortal. 

As  the  kite  dashes  through  the  masses  of  vapor  hurrying 
over  him,  he  touches  the  key,  and  again  and  again  the 
conquered  lightning  returns,  as  it  were,  a  caress — even 
submitting  to  be  caged  in  the  Leyden  jar  like  the  common 
electricity  from  his  rubbed  globe. 

And,  as  the  storm  abates,  the  thunder  dies  away  on  the 
horizon,  the  clouds  sweep  off  toward  their  ancient  enemies, 
the  mountains,  and  the  kite  moves  lazily  in  the  blue  ; 
while  on  the  thankful,  iipturned  face  of  the  man  gleams 
the  glad  sunshine  which  he  had  thought  never  to  behold 
again. 


"It  is  a  dogma  of  faith  that  the  demons  can  produce 
wind,  storms,  and  rain  of  fire  from  heaven.  The  atmo- 
sphere is  a  battlefield  between  angels  and  devils  .  .  .  The 
aspiring  steeples  around  which  cluster  the  low  dwellings 
of  men  are  to  be  likened,  when  the  bells  in  them  are  ring- 
ing, to  the  hen  spreading  its  protecting  wings  over  its 
chickens  :  for  the  tones  of  the  consecrated  metal  repel  the 
demons  and  arrest  storms  and  lightning." 

So  wrote  the  Angelic  Doctor  centuries  before  the  days 
of  Franklin.  Those  whose  minds  were  still  filled  with 
the  superstitions  of  a  bygone  age,  clung  to  their  belief  in 
the  efficacy  of  the  church  bells,  and  denounced  the  light- 
ning rod  as  a  sacrilege  ;  nay,  even  as  an  awful  defiance  of 
Heaven,  if  it  were  placed  upon  a  house  of  worship.  Abbe 
Nollet,  forgetting  the  philosopher  in  the  ecclesiastic,  de- 
clared it  to  be  uas  impious  to  ward  off  God's  lightnings  as 
for  a  child  to  resist  the  chastening  rod  of  the  father."  In 
vain  it  was  urged  that  as  the  rain  fell  alike  upon  the  just 
and  unjust,  so  the  thunderbolt  shattered  with  equal  im- 
partiality the  steeple  of  the  Christian  church  or  the  in  in- 


THE  SUPERSTITION  OF  THE   BELLS.  593 

aret  of  the  mosque  of  Mahomet.  Good  people,  in  their 
zeal  for  their  convictions,  retorted  that  the  presence  of  the 
infernal  contrivance  deconsecrated  the  lofty  spire  and  in- 
vited its  destruction;  and  this  not  only  because  of  the 
affront  offered  the  celestial  powers,  but  for  the  purely 
physical  reason  that  the  lightning  sought  the  conductor, 
and  so  became  directly  attracted  to  the  place  which  other- 
wise it  might  harmlessly  pass  by.  The  failure  of  some  of 
the  first-erected  rods  to  protect,  through  defective  construc- 
tion or  imperfect  earth  connections,  gave  color  to  these 
arguments.  Nevertheless,  the  spikes  bristled  on  the  pin- 
nacles, and  man  learned  "  to  sleep  fearless  of  the  thunder." 


The  epoch  of  the  intellectual  rise  which  I  seek  to  chron- 
icle, here  reaches  its  end.  The  establishment  of  the  iden- 
tity of  electricity  and  lightning  marks  its  conclusion,  and 
at  the  same  time  brings  to  culmination  the  long  series  of 
events  whereby  the  single  incomprehensible  effect  observed 
in  the  lodestone  and  the  amber  gradually  grew  into  recog- 
nition as  a  world  force,  subject  to  universal  law  and  per- 
vading all  nature.  It  had  lived  and  persisted  and  grown 
mighty,  steadily  rising  over  all  antagonisms,  even  as  the 
points  of  Franklin's  rods  reared  themselves  toward  the 
clouds,  far  above  the  jarring  clangor  of  the  bells. 

"Vivos  voco, 
Mortuos  plango, 
Fulgurafrango, ' ' 

sang  the  resounding  throats  in  the  steeples  as  of  old,  while 
the  lightning,  laughing  at  their  vociferations,  silently  and 
safely  followed  the  slender  iron  to  the  ground. 

"The  truth  of  science  has  ever  had  not  merely  the  task 
of  evolving  herself  from  the  dull  and  uniform  mist  of 
ignorance,  but  also  that  of  repressing  and  dissolving  the 
phantoms  of  the  imagination,  which  ever  rise  up  in  new 
and  tempting  shapes,  and  which,  not  being  of  her,  crowd 
38 


594         THE  INTELLECTUAL  RISE  IN   ELECTRICITY. 

before  and  around  her  and  embarrass  her  in  every  way."1 
So  said  the  Master  of  Electricity.  Nor  does  he  picture  all 
her  task;  for  there  is  mental  inertia  to  be  overcome  and 
conditions  to  be  created,  whereby  minds  are  rendered  will- 
ing to  conceive  as  possible,  things  contradicting  experi- 
ences or  habits  of  thought,  long  established  and  familiar. 

How  fraught  with  these  difficulties,  how  impeded  by 
these  obstacles,  has  been  the  intellectual  rise  in  electricity, 
and  yet  how  persistently,  how  inevitably  it  has  moved  on- 
ward— of  this,  some  imperfect  idea  may  perhaps  be  gleaned 
from  these  pages.  After  all,  they  recount  but  one  of  the 
many  struggles  of  the  human  mind  clearly  to  perceive,  and 
so  perceiving  to  understand,  something  which  it  intui- 
tively recognizes  as  written  in  the  great  book  of  Nature. 
Whether  it  be  a  woman  of  Syria,  in  a  bygone  age,  cur- 
iously watching  the  chaff  leap  to  her  amber  spindle, 
whether  a  degraded  Indian  of  the  Orinoco  idly  rubbing  the 
dry  stalks  of  the  Negritia  to  see  them  attract  lint;  whether 
a  Franklin  striving  to  fathom  the  secret  of  the  clouds,  the 
perception  is  the  same,  the  effort  to  understand  the  same; 
and  the  object  of  all  is  the  deciphering  of  Nature's  mes- 
sage told  in  the  amber  and  the  vine  and  the  atmosphere. 
It  is  in  intellectual  force  alone  that  the  differences  appear. 
It  is  before  the  steadily  augmenting  power  of  the  intellect 
that  Nature  yields  one  by  one  the  keys  to  her  enigmas. 

Before  those  still  unopened  we  may  wait  and  wonder; 
wondering  as  the  savage  Hurons  wondered  before  the 
magnet  which  the  Jesuits  brought  to  them;  wondering  as 
the  Greeks  wondered  before  the  mysteries  of  Samothrace; 
wondering  as  we  wonder  now,  when  beyond  the  little 
horizon  of  our  knowledge  we  think  we  discern  the  great 
dim  shadow  of  the  universal  all-pervading  force. 

Men  wait  for  times,  but  times  oftener  wait  for  men. 
The  intellectual  advance  is  not  marked  by  the  almanac, 
but  by  change  in  mind.  At  its  extremes  stand  the  savage 
and  the  sage — not  yesterday  and  to-day.  So  in  the  future, 

1  Faradav. 


THE   LESSON.  595 

as  in  the  past,  as  the  intellect  waxes  greater  and  more 
potent,  will  it  read  ever  new,  ever  greater  teachings  in 
the  eternal  handiwork. 

Thus  the  lesson  of  this  record,  and  of  all  kindred  others 
in  the  broad  fields  of  science,  may  well  be  taken  to  heart, 
for  none  is  more  reassuring.  Man-made  systems  may  fall. 
Apostles  of  degeneration  may  find,  in  the  things  which 
make  up  the  environment  of  the  hour,  signs  of  impending 
decay.  But  he  who  turns  to  the  history  of  intellectual  en- 
deavor in  the  study  of  Nature  will  learn  that  when  mind 
thus  faces  the  purity  of  the  Infinite  it  does  not  and  cannot 
degenerate.  Rather  will  he  see  in  the  constant  effort  to 
reveal  the  truth,  an  influence  always  making  for  the  good 
— always  neutralizing  the  tendency  to  evil — always  vast  in 
uplifting  power. 

Nor  will  this  be  but  a  safe  and  complacent  optimism; 
for  his  too  will  be  the  abiding  faith,  that  while  ignorance 
and  error  and  superstition  may  hinder,  while  the  light  of 
science  falsely  so  called  may  mislead,  until  progress  may 
appear  to  cease  and  even  the  way  seem  lost,  still  the  ad- 
vance of  the  intellect  is  continuing — constantly,  surely, 
steadily,  and  in  God's  own  time  it  must  show. 

When  electricity  and  lightning  were  known  to  be  one, 
the  end  seemed  to  have  come,  and  the  tidings  which  the 
amber  and  the  magnet  had  to  tell  were  believed  of  all 
men  to  haye  been  told  to  the  last  syllable.  But  the  book 
had  only  been  opened.  We  have  read  much — very  much 
— from  it  since.  As  the  rise  in  ourselves  continues,  so, 
with  equal  pace,  shall  we  read  on. 


INDEX. 


Abarbanel,  29. 

Academy,  del  Cimento,  exp'ts  of, 
432;  French,  on  Great  Pyramid, 
58;  of  Sciences,  French  Royal, 
formation  of,  378,  450. 

Acmon,  22. 

Addison,  refers  to  Strada's  magnetic 
teleg'h,  384. 

Adsiger,  Peter,  192. 

Advancement  of  Learning,  criti- 
cisms on  Gilbert  in  Bacon's,  328. 

^Egean  Sea,  iron  on  coasts  of,  22. 

Aelfred,  King,  114. 

Affaitatus,  Fortunius,  211. 

Age  of  iron,  20. 

Agricola,  George,  describes  gnomes, 
25  ;  on  amber,  241. 

Air  pump,  Boyle's  exp'ts  on,  414; 
Guericke's,  389  ;  Hauksbee's,  457. 

Akenside,  refers  to  Strada's  teleg'h, 
384. 

Akkadians,  connection  of,  with 
Chinese,  63. 

Albertus  Magnus,  on  lodestone,  158, 
308. 

Aldrovandus,  collections  of,  342. 

Alexander  of  Aphrodiseus,  93,  303. 

Alexander  the  Great,  campaigns,  38. 

Alexandria,  Univ'y  of,  44. 

Alfonso  X.,  laws  of,  in. 

Allamand,  describes  Leyden  Jar, 
521. 

Altaic  nations,  61. 

Amalfi,  1 1 6. 

Ambassadors,  Chinese  legend  of 
the,  69. 

Amber,  ancient  trade  routes  of,  15; 
ancient  use  of,  for  decoration,  16; 
and  lyncurium  identical,  43;  As- 
clepiades  on,  52;  attraction,  Agri- 
cola  on,  247;  attraction,  Cardan 
on,  249;  attraction,  distinguished 
by  St.  Augustine,  89;  attraction, 
Fracastorio  on,  241;  attraction, 
first  Chinese  knowledge  of,  74; 
attraction,  first  obs'd  by  Syrian 


women,  17;  attraction  of  watef 
by,  310;  attraction,  Plutarch  on, 
50;  Baltic,  15;  black,  43;  Boyle 
distils  to  caput  mortuum,  419; 
called  "harpaga,"  17;  deposits 
of,  15;  disc'y  of,  in  lake  dwellings, 
Ji ;  Galen  on,  52;  Greek  legends 
of,  74;  in  ancient  China,  74;  in 
ancient  Greek  literature,  16;  in 
Egyptian  temples,  52;  insects  in, 
17;  lack  of,  in  Egypt,  52;  -soul, 
not  conceived  by  Thales,  34;  St. 
Augustine  distinguishes  attraction 
of,  89;  Theophrastus  on,  40. 

Amplitude,  sun's,  198. 

Amulets,  lodestone,  25. 

Anatomy,  in  Gilbert's  time,  262. 

Anatomy  of  Melancholy,  Burton's, 
368.  ' 

Anchor,  invention  of,  59. 

Animals,  Nollet's  exp'ts  on  electri- 
fying, 527. 

Annals  of  China,  national,  65. 

Anthony  of  Bologna,  188. 

Antiphyson,  93. 

Apellikon  of  Teos,  43. 

Apollonius  Pergaeus,  44. 

Appulus,  William,  117. 

Apuleius,  on  Thales,  35. 

Arab  compass,  no. 

Arabian  Nights,  story  of  magnetic 
rocks  in  the,  96. 

Arabs,  in  Spain,  108;  on  magnetic 
rocks,  100;  early  navigation  of, 
103. 

Archimedes,  44;  sphere  of,  166. 

Aristotle,  Arabic  treatises  of,  157; 
deductive  method  of,  39;  estab- 
lishment of  school  of,  38;  on 
Thales,  33,  34;  on  water  soul,  34; 
phil'y  of,  followed  by  Gilbert,  282; 
referred  to  by  Bacon,  279;  rela- 
tion of  Gilbert  to,  270;  says  noth- 
ing about  amber-soul,  35. 

Armature,  first  vibrating,  49,  Gal- 
ileo on  the,  345,  348;  Gilbert's, 
288. 


(597) 


598 


INDEX. 


Arsinoe,  lodestone  roof  in   temple 

of,  44. 

Arundel,  Lord,  his  magnet,  333. 
Aryans,  the,  61. 

Ascham,  on  Italian  learning,  334.. 
Asclepiades  on  use  of  amber,  52. 
Astrolabe,  179,  215. 
Astronomy  of  Chinese,  79. 
Attraction,  theories  of,  prevalent  in 

1 7th  century,  433. 
Attractive  point,  ^orman's,  214. 
Aurora,  Bose  suggests  elec.  origin 

of,  499. 

Averrhoes,  on  amber  attraction,  156. 
Azieros,  22. 

Aztec  ignorance  of  iron,  21. 
Azimuth  compass,  181. 

B. 

Babylonia,  connection  of  Chinese 
with,  63. 

Bacon,  Francis  and  Descartes,  356  ; 
and  Gilbert,  317  ;  criticisms  on 
Gilbert,  321-322 ;  definition  of 
heat,  417;  indebtedness  to  Gilbert, 
319,  329;  inductive  method  of,  330; 
invective  against  Gilbert,  327;  ob- 
serves shock  of  torpedo,  401 ;  on 
learning  of  his  time,  334;  on  med- 
icine, 253;  on  truth,  311;  physi- 
ological remains,  324;  reference  to 
Aristotle,  279;  reference  to  elec- 
trics, 325:  relation  to  old  and  new 
phil'y,  331;  treatise  on  magnet, 
326. 

Bacon,  Roger,  160;  on  Peregrinus, 
165. 

Bailak  Kibdjaki,  no;  on  mag. 
rocks,  100. 

Bak  tribes  in  China,  63. 

Bandi,  Countess,  spont.  combustion 
of,  503- 

Barlowe,  Dr.  W.,  316,  336,  337;  con- 
troversy with  Ridley,  338;  mag. 
discoveries  and  relations  to  Gil- 
bert, 340. 

Barometer,  PicanTs  luminous,  453. 

Battery,  Franklin  invents  series, 
556,  559;  first  electrical,  523. 

Beal,  telegraphic  predictions,  .387. 

Beauvais,  Vincent  de,  on  magnet, 
158. 

Bede,  on  magnet,  115. 

Bellerophon,  suspended  horse  of,  46. 

Bell,  Gordon  invents  elec.,  507 ; 
Schwenter's  mag.,  383. 

Bells,  alleged  lightning  protection 
by,  592. 


Belus,  magnets  in  temple  of,  29. 

Bercy,  Hugo  de,  157. 

Bernouilli,  John,  455,  469. 

Betham,  Sir  W.,  56. 

Betulae,  56. 

Bevis,  Dr.,  imp'ts  on  Leydeu  jar, 
534,  555- 

Bible  of  Guyot  de  Provins,  152. 

Birds  as  guides  at  sea,  106,  113. 

Blanco,  Andrea,  map  of,  197. 

Bleaching,  elec.  discovered  by 
Kriiger,  508. 

Bologna  stone,  454. 

Bond  on  compass  variation,  446. 

Bononian  stone,  454. 

Boodt,  De,  disputes  mag.  teleg'h, 
383;  on  lychnites,  43. 

Bose,  George  Matthias,  493;  "beati- 
fication," 498;  electrical  poem, 
498;  electrifies  water  jets,  499; 
experiments,  495  ;  ignites  gun- 
powder by  elec'y,  497;  invents 
prime  conductor  and  obtains 
powerful  discharges,  496;  suggests 
elec.  origin  of  Aurora,  499. 

Bowdoin,  correspondence  with 
Franklin,  585. 

Boy,  Gray's  exp'ts  with  suspended, 
476. 

Boyle,  Robert,  404 ;  additions  to 
electrics,  419;  compared  with 
Hooke,  427;  correspondence  with 
American  scientists,  425;  corpus- 
cular theory,  416;  disputes  Gil- 
bert, 417;  elec.  and  mag.  theories, 
415;  electrical  doubts,  421;  Eve- 
lyn's estimate  of  his  character, 
424;  experiments,  420 ;  first  sci- 
entific chemist,  414;  not  original 
discoverer  of  elec.  repulsion,  420; 
observes  mutual  att'n  of  electrics 
and  rubber,  418;  observes  odor  of 
rubbed  electric,  415;  on  mech'l 
production  of  elec'y,  418;  on  Van 
Helmont,  375;  primary  concepts, 
415;  sermonizing,  424;  theory  of 
elec.  repulsion,  419. 

Brand,  discovers  phosphorus,  454. 

Bremond  on  Mahomet's  coffin,  47. 

Britain,  magnet  known  in  ancient, 
114. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  380;  exp'ts  on 
mag.  telegraph,  386;  on  garlic 
myth,  143. 

Bruno,  Giordano,  267,  333. 

BufFon,  De,  declares  elec'y  unripe 
for  fixed  laws,  548;  on  Franklin's 
exp'ts,  587. 


INDEX. 


599 


Burrowes,  on  compass  variation,  446. 
Burton,  Robert,  371,  377. 

C. 

Cabseus,  Nicolaus,  349;  criticises 
Gilbert,  350;  discovers  elec.  re- 
pulsion, 351;  elec.  theory,  351; 
on  Garzoni's  discoveries,  229;  on 
mag.  spectrum,  352;  on  mag.  tele- 
graph, 385;  theory  compared  with 
that  of  Boyle,  419. 

Cabiri,  23,  25. 

Calamitico,  el,  204. 

Cambridge  Univ'y  in  time  of  Gil- 
bert, 261. 

Canal,  Necho's  failure  to  build,  58. 

Cardan,  Jerome,  243;  differentiation 
of  amber  and  magnet,  249;  Gil- 
bert's attitude  toward,  280;  on 
lightning,  568. 

Cardinal  points,  Chinese  and  Chal- 
dean names  similar,  63;  Etruscan 
inv'n  of,  59;  named  by  Charle- 
magne, 133;  named  by  Flemish 
sailors,  133. 

Cart,  Chinese  south-pointing,  67,  69, 
71,  72,  73,  Si. 

Casciorolus  discovers  Bologna  stone, 
45f . 

Cassini,  astronomical  obs'ns,  452;  on 
mercury  light,  456. 

Castor  and  Pollux,  23. 

Catullus,  des'n  of  spinning,  18. 

Cave   publishes  Franklin's  papers, 

585. 

Cecco  d'Ascoli,  203. 
Cedrinus,  on  mag,  suspension,  45. 
Celmis,  22. 
Cephisis,  Lake,  17. 
Cesare,  disc'y  of  magnetism  induced 

by  earth,  227. 

Cesi,  founds  Lyncei  Academy,  342. 
Chadids,  382. 
Chain  of  lodestone,  24. 
Chaldeans,       Chinese      civilization 

from,  63. 

Challoner,  Sir  T.,  339. 
Chamberlain's  letters,  Gilbert  men- 
tioned in,  264. 
Chariot,    south -pointing — see   Cart, 

Chinese  south-pointing. 
Charge,  Dufay   on   distribution  of, 

483- 
Charlemagne,       names        cardinal 

points,  133. 
Charles    II.,    interest    in    physical 

science,  406,  407,  408. 
Charletou,  Dr.  Walter,  373,  376. 


Charter-house,  the,  470. 

Chaucer  on  compass  points,  191. 

China,  amber  in  ancient,  74;  burn- 
ing of  books  in,  66;  first  ships 
built  in,  78;  first  south-pointing 
chariots  in,  67;  iron  in  ancient, 
73;  magnetic  rocks  on  coasts  of, 
98;  nucleus  of,  64;  original  set- 
tlers of,  63;  pagodas  in,  564; 
Phoenician  voyages  to,  77;  south- 
pointing  carts,  lost  art  in,  71; 
Tchoii  dynasty  in,  68;  voyages  to, 
in  675  B.  C.,  56. 

Chinese,  ancient  navigation  of,  77; 
astronomy,  79;  characteristics,  77, 
81,  82;  chronology,  65;  connec- 
tion with  Akkadians  and  Baby- 
lonians, 63;  discover  compass 
variation,  76;  first  knowledge  of 
amber,  74;  same  of  lodestone,  72; 
geomancers,  76;  junks,  77,  78; 
inventions,  80;  legend  of  ambas- 
sadors, 67;  mariner's  compass,  75, 
76,  85,  189;  south-pointing  char- 
iots, 67,  69,  71;  superstitions  about 
compass,  105;  voyages  to  Japan, 
etc.,  78;  worship  of  magnet,  80. 

Cherif-Edrisi,  100. 

Chow,  King  of,  70. 

Chronology,  Chinese,  65-67. 

Circuit,  first  elec.,  525;  Lemonnier's 
water  and  metal,  532;  Watson's, 
across  the  Thames,  549. 

Claudian,  poem  on  magnet,  93;  par- 
odied by  Strada,  383. 

Clayton,  letter  to  Boyle,  425. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  45. 

Clutcher,  name  for  amber,  17. 

Clycas,  45. 

Coition,  magnetic,  276. 

Colchester,  260. 

Colden,  Cadwallader,  585. 

College,  The  Invisible,  379. 

Collegium  Naturale  Curiosorum, 
490. 

Collinson,  Peter,  538,  583. 

Colonne,  poem  of  Guido,  156. 

Columbus,  Christopher,  195;  mag- 
netic discoveries  of,  200,  202;  the- 
ory of  compass,  199. 

Combustion,  cases  of  spontaneous, 

503- 

Compass,  Mariner's,  alleged  use  in 
building  Great  Pyramid,  57;  An- 
cient Finn,  141;  Appulus  on,  117; 
Arab,  no;  attributed  to  Egyptians, 
57;  to  ancient  Greeks,  54;  to  King 
Solomon,  55;  to  Phoenicians,  54; 


6oo 


INDEX. 


Compass  (continued.) 
to  various  ancient  people,  53;  Azi- 
muth, 181;  boxing  the,  187;  Chin- 
ese, first  marine,  189;  Chinese 
obs'n  of  variation  of,  76;  Colum- 
bus' alteration  of,  196;  Columbus' 
disc'yof  variation  of,  200;  Colum- 
bus' theory  of,  199;  derivation  of 
word,  133;  design  of  card,  Etrus- 
can, 60;  De  Vitry  on,  154;  dip  or 
inclination  of,  210;  disc'y  of  dip 
of,  209;  early  Spanish,  HI;  errors 
in  Columbus',  201;  evolution  of, 
131;  Finn,  140;  first  des'n  of,  128; 
garlic  effect  on,  supposed,  143; 
Gilbert  on  storage  in  meridian,  313; 
Gilbert's  electroscope  resembles, 
304;  governed  by  earth's  poles, 
277;  Guyot  de  Provins  on,  153;  in 
time  of  Peregrinus  179;  Lullycu, 
191;  Neckam's  des'n  of,  128;  non- 
mag,  metal  in,  183 ;  Norman's 
disc'y  of  dip,  2:5;  Norse  penalty 
for  falsifying,  144;  not  Chinese 
inv'n,  85;  not  derived  by  Arabs 
from  Chinese,  105;  old  mode  of 
using,  130;  Peregrinus',  180;  Porta 
on  protecting  needle  of,  238;  pun 
ishrnent  for  tampering  with,  144; 
secular  variation  of,  446;  sugges- 
tion of  telegraphy  by,  239;  tele- 
graph, Schwenter's  and  others', 
382;  unknown  to  Saracens,  109; 
variation  of,  196;  William  the 
Clerk's  poem  on,  150 ;  Wisbuy 
origin  of,  146. 

Condenser,  Franklin's  plate,  556. 

Conduction,  electric  discovered  by 
Guericke,  399;  magnetic,  Gilbert 
on,  289. 

Conductor,  Desaguiliers  proposes 
name,  488;  magnetic,  first  sug- 
gestion of,  47;  prime,  inv'd  by 
Bose,  496;  or  non-electric,  482. 

Constantine,  law  of,  concerning 
lightning,  566. 

Convection,  electrical,  545. 

Copernican  theory,  267. 

Copernicus,  Nicolas,  267. 

Cornier  shocked  by  lightning,  588. 

Corrichterus,  his  mag.  unguent,  37. 

Corybantes,  23. 

Cowley,  poem  on  R.  Society,  413. 

Creagus,  159. 

Creation,  prehistoric  account  of,  164. 

Crows,  as  guides  at  sea,  113. 

Ctesias,  suggestion  of  lightning  pro- 
tection, 565. 


Cunaeus,  inv'n  of  Leyden  jar  as- 
cribed to,  521. 

Curetes,  23. 

Current,  first  suggestion  of  mag- 
netic, 47. 

D. 

Dactyls,  Idean,  22. 

Balance,  treatise  on  magnet,  448. 

D'Alibard  translates  Franklin's  pa- 
pers, 587  ;  exp'ts  on  lightning- 
rod^  588. 

Dantzic,  philosophers,  exp'ts  of, 
514;  physical  society  of,  513. 

De  Augmentis,  criticisms  of  Gilbert 
in  Bacon's,  328. 

De  Beauvais. — See  Beauvais. 

De  Bercy.— See  Bercy. 

De  Boodt.— See  Boodt. 

De  Buffon. — See  Buflbn. 

De  Fantis.— See  Fantis. 

De  la  Hire.— See  La  Hire. 

De  Lor. — See  Lor. 

De  Magnete,  Bacon's  "remains" 
taken  from  Gilbert's,  325. 

De  Monmor. — See  Monmcr. 

De  Natura  Rerum,  Lucretius'  poem, 
47;  Neckam's  treatise,  123. 

Denmark,  Iron  Age  in,  21. 

D'Epinois,  Gautier,  poem  of,  156. 

Desaguiliers,  Dr.  Joseph,  470;  exp'ts 
of,  488 ;  on  atmospheric  elec'y, 
489. 

Descartes,  Rene,  356 ;  copied  by 
Digby,  378;  magnetic  theory,  359; 
mag.  theory  compared  with  that 
of  Plutarch,  51;  method  compared 
with  that  of  Bacon,  356;  on  elec- 
trics, 364;  on  mag.  spectrum,  362; 
theory  abandoned  in  France,  510; 
theory  compared  with  that  of  Lu- 
cretius, 48;  vortex  theory  of,  357. 

De  Subtilitate,  Cardan's  work,  246. 

Diamond,  alleged  attraction  of,  by 
iron,  281;  alleged  magnetism  of, 
238;  alleged  screening  effect,  88. 

Diaz,  Bartholomew,  voyage  of,  205. 

Digby,  Sir  Kenelm,  376;  elec.  the- 
ories of,  378;  replies  to  Browne, 
380. 

Digges,  Madam,  her  sparkling  frock, 
425. 

Digges,  Sir  Dudley,  339. 

Digges,  William,  letter  concerning 
Mrs.  Sewall,  425. 

Diocles,  41. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  34. 

Dionysius,  59. 


INDEX. 


601 


Dioscorides  on  magnet,  92 ;  on 
ligurius,  42. 

Dioscuri,  the,  23. 

Dip  of  magnetic  needle,  209,  210; 
Affaitatus'  supposed  disc'y  of, 
21 1 ;  Gilbert  on,  213;  Hartmanu's 
disc'y  of,  209 ;  Norman's  disc'y 
of,  215,  217. 

Drebbel,  Cornelius  Van,  44,  192. 

Dufay,  Charles  Francois.  478;  broad 
view  of  elec'y,  487;  discovers  vit- 
reous and  resinous  elec'y,  484; 
electrifies  himself,  483;  electrifies 
metals,  479 ;  exp'ts  on  colored 
objects,  481;  on  distribution  of 
charge,  483;  no  distinction  be- 
tween electrics  and  non-electrics, 
479;  sends  letter  to  R.  Society, 
485;  recognition  of  Gray's  work, 
485;  tribute  to  Gray,  487;  uses 
solid  insulators,  482 ;  verifies 
Gray's  exp'ts  on  conduction,  479. 

Du  Tour  on  Nollet's  theory,  554. 

E. 

Earth,  field  of  force  of,  Gilbert  on, 
292;  magnetism  induced  by,  227; 
return  circuit  disc'd  by  Watson, 
550. 

Eclipse  at  time  of  Thales,  34. 

Effluvium,  electric,  Cabseus  on,  351; 
Gilbert  on,  308;  magnetic,  292. 

Egypt,  absence  of  Science  in  an- 
cient, 31;  iron  in,  28,  58;  lack  of 
amber  in  ancient,  52;  mag.  sus- 
pension in,  45  ;  opening  of,  to 
commerce,  30;  religion  of  ancient, 
31;  vending  machines  in  ancient, 
87. 

Egyptians,  ancient,  ignorance  of 
\nagnet  of,  27;  alleged  knowledge 
of  compass  by,  57;  voyages  of,  58. 

Electorius,  42. 

Electrical,  first  use  of  word,  339. 

Electric  and  magnetic  motion  com- 
pared, 311;  attraction,  theories  of, 
307;  attraction,  Gilbert  on,  308; 
bell,  inv'd  by  Gordon,  506;  light, 
see  Light,  electric;  Machine,  Gor- 
don's, 506  ;  Hauksbee's,  461  ; 
Guericke's,  395  ;  Winkler's,  506  ; 
Motor,  Gordon's,  507. 

Electricity  and  lightning,  Frank- 
lin's exp'ts  on  identity  of,  580,  et 
seq.;  Freke  on  identity  of,  571; 
Nollet  on  identity  of,  573;  Wink- 
ler  on  identity  of,  572;  and  mag- 
netism linked  by  Newton  with 


gravity,  439;  atmospheric,  De- 
saguiliers  theory  of,  489;  Frank- 
lin's theory  of,  576;  beginning  of 
modern,  299;  Boyle  on  mech'l 
production  of,  418;  Digby  on, 
378;  dual  nature  of,  found  by 
Dufay,  484;  and  by  Kinnersley, 
586. 

First  application  to  medicine, 
501-2;  first  attempt  to  measure, 
523;  first  book  on,  in  English, 
420;  first  distinguished  from  mag- 
netism by  St.  Augustine,  89;  first 
notice  of,  by  R.  Society,  402;  first 
use  of  word,  373. 

Gordon  kills  animals  by,  507; 
Franklin's  theory  of,  643;  Ger- 
mans regard  as  fire,  492;  Greene's 
poetical  references  to,  369;  Hau- 
sen's  theory  of,  494;  Jonson's  ref- 
erence to,  368;  new  theories  of,  in 
1747,  5531  Quelmalz,  theory  of, 
503;  resinous  and  vitreous,  dis- 
covered by  Dufay,  484;  s'Grave- 
sande's  definition  of,  488;  speed 
of,  Lemonnier's  attempt  to  meas- 
ure, 532;  Watson's  attempt,  551; 
Winkler's  attempt,  506;  Watson's 
theories  of,  507,  534. 

Electrics,  and  non-electrics,  Dufay 
on,  479;  Bacon  on,  325;  become 
non-conductors,  482;  Boyle's  ad- 
ditions to,  list  of,  419;  Eoyle  ob- 
serves mutual  attraction  of  elec- 
tric and  rubber,  418;  Browne's 
exp'ts  on,  381;  Cabaeus'  additions 
to  list  of,  350;  Descartes  on,  364; 
Gassendi  on  attraction  of,  418;  Gil- 
bert's list  of,  299;  Gilbert  on 
nature  of,  307;  mutual  attraction 
of,  obs'd  by  Acad.  del  Cimento, 
433;  naming  of,  302;  per  se,  488. 

Electrida,  17. 

Electrides,  16,  17. 

Electro-magnetism,     word     coined 

by  Kircher,  365. 

j  Electrometer,  first  use  of  word,  524. 
j  Electron,  16. 

Electrum,  in  Egypt,  52;  lake,  17. 
i  Elicott,  John,  elec.  theory  of,  554. 

Elizabeth,  Queen,  learning  in  time 
of,  332-334;  legacy  to  Gilbert  265. 

Emerson,  R.  W.,  on  genius,  426. 

Emperor  First,  Chinese,  66. 

England  in  time  of  Elizabeth,  334; 
in  time  of  Hauksbee,  463. 

Ephesus,  mag.  suspension  in  temple 
of,  46. 


INDEX. 


Epicurus  on  attraction,  51. 
Erasmus  on  ligurius,  42. 
Eridanus,  amber  on  shores  of,  17. 
Erigena  founds  scholasticism,  118. 
Ether,  Newtonian,  511. 
Ethiopia,  iron  in,  22 
Etruria,  amber  in,  15. 
Etruscans,    the,    59;    design    object 

like  compass  card,  60;  genesis  of, 

62;  on  lightning,  566. 
Euclid,  44. 

Euripides,  Oeneus  of,  24. 
Eustachius,  262. 
Evax,  42. 
Evelyn,  John,  378,  407,  424. 

F. 

Fabri,  Honore,  420. 

Fallopius,  262. 

Fanshawe,  Lady,  on  Digby,  379. 

Fantis,  Antonio  de,  192. 

Faraday,  and  Gilbert,  293;  efforts  to 
connect  gravity  and  magnetism, 
442;  on  Newton's  lines  of  force, 
442. 

Fathers  of  Church,  on  magnet,  90. 

Ferabosco,  the,  visits  R.  Society, 
407. 

Ficino,  Marsilio,  mag.  theory  of, 
240. 

Field  of  force,  Descartes  on,  359; 
development  of,  218;  Dufay  on, 
483;  Gilbert  on,  272,  291;  iron  fil- 
ings in,  50 ;  Lucretius  on,  48 ; 
magnetic  and  electric,  434;  Max- 
well on,  440 ;  Newton  on,  440  ; 
Peregrinus  on,  172,  207;  Porta  on, 
235;  Sarpi  on,  227. 

Figure-head,  inv'n  of  the,  59. 

Finland,  conquest  of,  137. 

Finns,  the,  59,  83;  and  Lapps,  139; 
magic  of,  138;  superstitions  con- 
cerning, 139;  use  of  compass  by, 

.^39- 

Finno-Ugric  family,  59. 

Fire,  ancient  records  of  atmos- 
pheric, 568  ;  electrical,  509  ;  Ger- 
mans regard  elec'y  as,  492. 

Flesh  magnet,  the,  159. 

Fludd,  Dr.  Robert,  375. 

Fluid  theory  of  elec'y,  Franklin's, 

544- 

Form,  Aristotelian,  276,  282,  419. 
Fountain,   Desaguiliers'  electrified, 

489. 
Fracastorio,  Jerome,  amber  theory 

of,  241;  Gilbert's  attitude  toward, 

280;  on  mag.  rocks,  204. 


France,  condition  of  phys.  science 
in,  in  i/th  cent'y,  452;  Franklin's 
exp'ts  repeated  in,  587;  learned 
societies  in,  378. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  537;  advises 
Collinson  of  discharging  effect 
of  points,  541  ;  correspondence 
with  Colden,  Bowdoin  and  Belch- 
er, 585;  electrical  exp'ts  on  Ley- 
den  jar,  etc.,  543,  544,  545,  556, 
558;  on  identity  of  lightning  and 
elec'y,  580;  on  points,  541;  on 
suspended  scale  pan,  582;  experi- 
ments repeated  in  France,  587; 
invents  plate  condenser  and  series 
battery,  556;  kite  experiment,  590; 
lightning  rod,  582;  papers  rejected 
by  R.  Society  and  published  by 
Cave,  583;  regards  lightning  as 
fired  sulphur,  575;  retires  to  de- 
vote himself  to  elec'y,  547;  the- 
ories of  elec'y,  543,  576;  theory 
claimed  by  Watson,  552 ;  uses 
battery  for  curative  purposes,  585. 

Fra  Paolo,  224. 

Frederick  I.  of  Prussia  founds  Ber- 
lin Society,  490. 

Freke  on  identity  of  lightning  and 
elec'y,  571. 

Froude,  on  genius,  426. 

G. 

Gagates,  the,  43,  126. 

Galen  on  amber,  52;  on  lodestone, 
92. 

Galileo,  abjuration  of,  355;  con- 
demnation of,  356 ;  correspond- 
ence with  Duke  of  Tuscany,  345; 
experiments  on  magnet,  345;  on 
Gilbert's  discoveries,  344-345;  on 
magnetic  teleg'h,  385. 

Garlic,  alleged  effect  on  compass, 
143;  Matthiolus  on,  281. 

Garzoni,  alleged  mag.  discoveries 
of,  229. 

Gassendi,  elec.  theory  of,  418. 

Geomancers,  Chinese,  75. 

Germany,  physical  science  in,  490, 
492. 

Gibbon  on  Mahomet's  coffin,  46. 

Gilbert,  William,  258;  amber  at- 
traction of  water,  310;  amber 
questions,  295;  and  Aristotle,  270, 
275;  and  Barlowe,  340;  and  Guer- 
icke,  their  mag.  theories  com- 
pared, 393;  and  Kouopho,  311; 
attitude  to  predecessors,  279;  au- 
thorities quoted  by,  2^0. 


INDEX. 


603 


Gilbert  (continued.) 

Compared  by  Bacon  to  Xeno- 
phanes,  328;  comparison  of  the 
poles,  277;  conception  of  gravity, 
437;  condemns  mag.  fallacies, 
281;  continued  as  court  physician 
by  James  I.,  315;  copied  by  Van 
Helmout,  373;  correlation  of  elec. 
with  other  motions,  309;  correla- 
tion of  gravity  and  magnetism, 
293;  cosmical  philosophy,  269; 
cosmical  system,  294;  cosmical 
theory  accepted  by  Kepler,  354; 
cosmical  theory  compared  with 
Newton's,  435,  438;  criticised  by 
Bacon,  321-322-327;  death  and 
burial  place,  315;  declares  earth 
a  magnet,  276;  De  Magnete,  his 
treatise,  260;  De  Magnete  rec'd 
in  Italy,  343;  De  Mundo  Novo, 
his  treatise,  260,  316,  318;  dis- 
coveries recapitulated,  312-313. 

Education  of,  259;  elec.  effect 
of  atmospheric  conditions  noted, 
305;  elec.  and  mag.  motions  com- 
pared, 311;  electroscope,  303;  em- 
bellishments in  De  Magnete,  268; 
errors  as  to  variation,  273;  fail- 
ures in  observation,  312;  field  of 
force  discussed,  272,  291;  form 
and  matter  theory,  276;  free  phil- 
osophizing of,  310;  generation  of 
lodestone,  287;  inductive  method 
of,  prior  to  Bacon,  330;  influence 
of  Aristotle  on,  282;  insulation, 
308-310;  list  of  electrics,  299;  list 
of  non-electrics,  305. 

Magnetic  discoveries  of,  288; 
magnetic  repulsion,  285;  mag- 
netic theory  of,  276;  disputed  by 
Boyle,  417;  Matter  and  Form, 
284;  Meteorologia  of,  329;  methods 
of  thought  of,  266;  ''nature''  dis- 
cussed, 285;  nature  of  electric, 
307;  negative  conclusions  regard- 
ing elec'y,  306;  nomenclature, 
301;  orb  of  virtue,  272;  compared 
with  obs'ns  of  Porta  and  Pere- 
grinus,  351;  Owen's  epigram  on, 
341;  predecessors  referred  to,  287; 
portraits  and  works,  260;  post- 
humous volume,  316,  318;  pro- 
posed addition  to  De  Magnete, 
316;  referred  to  by  Bacon,  318; 
residence  and  society,  263;  rela- 
tions to  Queen  Elizabeth,  262, 
264;  relations  to  Sarpi,  344. 

Scaliger's    criticism,    341;    ter- 


rella  of,  277;  terrestrial  attraction 
of  moon,  292;  theory  of  elec.  at^ 
traction,  308;  theories,  cosmical, 
269,  294;  theories  compared  with 
those  of  Peregrinus,  278;  con- 
demned by  Kircher,  366. 

Gioja,  Flavio,  187. 

Glanvil,  encyclopaedia  of,  160;  tele- 
graphic predictions,  387. 

Gnomes  of  Middle  Ages,  25. 

Goddard,  Jonathan,  404. 

Goose,  Kircher's  genesis  of  solan, 

365- 
Gordon,  Andrew,   elec.   inventions, 

506  et  seq. 
Gottland,  134. 
Gralath,  Daniel,  exp'ts  on  Leyden 

jar  and    elec.    measuring    inst's, 

522  et  seq. 
Grandamicus,  mag.  theory  of  earth, 

405- 

Graunt,  John,  refused  admission  to 
R.  Society,  409. 

Gravity,  and  magnetism,  Gilbert 
on,  293 ;  Newton  co-ordinates 
elec'y  and  mag'n  with,  442. 

Gray,  Stephen,  470;  and  Dufay,  486; 
Dufay's  tribute  to,  487;  his  friends, 
Godfrey  and  Wheler,  473;  exp'ts 
on  brush  discharge,  486;  on  charge 
resident  on  surface,  476;  on  con- 
duction, 474;  on  elec.  induction, 
477;  on  glass  tube,  472;  on  hair, 
etc.,  471;  on  similarity  of  elec. 
discharge  to  thunder  and  light- 
ning, 486;  planetary  theory  and 
death,  487. 

Greeks,  amber  in  literature  of,  16; 
amber  trade  of,  16;  compass  at- 
tributed to,  54;  emigration  to 
Egypt,  30;  iron  working  of,  23; 
nature  worship  of,  31. 

Greene,  Robert,  literary  references 
to  mag'n  and  elec'y,  369. 

Grote,  on  philosophy  of  Aristotle, 
39;  of  Thales,  37. 

Grummert,  utilization  of  elec.  light, 
5c8. 

Guericke,  Otto  von,  388;  and  Gil- 
bert compared,  393;  believes  earth 
to  be  animate,  393;  discovers  dis- 
charging effect  of  points,  398; 
elec.  conduction,  ,"99;  elec.  light, 
402;  sound  due  to  electrification, 
402;  elec.  repulsion  obs'd  by,  397; 
elec.  terrella  of,  395;  forgotten  in 
i8th  cent'y,  491;  hypothesis  of 
virtues,  392 ;  invents  air-pump, 


604 


INDEX. 


Guericke  (continued.) 

414;  invents  elec.  machine,  395-6; 

treatise  de  Vacuo  Spatio,  391. 
Guilford,    Lord,    sells    barometers, 

406. 

Guinicelli,  poem  of,  155. 
Gunpowder  ignited  by  elec'y,  497; 

lightning  compared  to  explosion 

of,  570. 
Guyot  de  Provins,  152. 

H. 

Hair,  elec.  attraction  of,  obs'd  by 
Boyle,  422. 

Hakewill,  384. 

Hale,  Lord,  on  hydrostatics,  406. 

Halley,  Dr.  Edmund,  447. 

Hammering,  magnetization  by,  290. 

Hartmann,  disc'y  of  dip,  209. 

Harpaga,  17. 

Hauksbee,  Francis,  457  ;  electric 
machine,  461;  exp'ts  on  elec.  in- 
duction, 467;  on  elec.  light,  460; 
on  lines  of  force,  467;  on  lumi- 
nous fountain,  459. 

Hausen,  Christian  August,  493. 

Healing  by  first  intention,  Browne 
on,  381. 

Heat  defined  as  mode  of  motion,  by 
Bacon,  Boyle,  Locke  and  Hooke, 
417;  destruction  of  magnetization 
by,  227,  237. 

Hebrews,  iron  working  by,  29. 

Heliades,  legend  of,  16. 

Helmont,  John  Baptist  Van,  372. 

Henry,  Prince,  the  Navigator,  194. 

Heraclea,  27. 

Heraclean  stone,  24,  27. 

Herculean  stone,  24,  27. 

Hero,  44. 

Herodotus  on  Thales,  34. 

Hesiod,  amber  mentioned  by,  16; 
brass  mentioned  by,  21. 

History   of   stones,   Theophrastus', 

39- 

Hippalus,  104. 
Hipparchus,  44. 
Hippias,  35. 

Hoang-ti,  legend  of,  67;  reign  of,  65. 
Hoar,    Leonard,    corresponds    with 

Boyle,  425. 

Hobbes,  attacks  R.  Society,  378. 
Homer,    amber  mentioned   by,  16; 

iron   seldom   mentioned    by,    21; 

knowledge  of  compass  attributed 

to,  54. 
Hooke,  Robert,  427;  on  elec.  light, 

430;  on  heat  as  vibration,  417;  in- 


ventions of,  428-9;  phonograph 
suggested,  429;  spiral  spring  of, 
429. 

Hopkinson,  Thomas,  540. 

Horns,  magnet  termed  bone  of,  28. 

Huet,  Bishop,  on  Solomon's  voy- 
ages, 55. 

Humboldt  on  Columbus,  200. 

Humor,  elec.  attraction  ascribed  to, 
308. 

I. 

Iceland,  discovery  of,  113. 

Ida,  Mt.,  mag.  legend  of,  19. 

Idean  Dactyls,  22. 

Ignition,  electric,  496,  507,  508. 

Inclination  of  compass,  210. 

Induction,  electric,  Gray's  exp'ts 
on,  477;  Hauksbee's  exp'ts  on, 
467;  magnetic,  Descartes  on,  361; 
Norman  on,  219;  of  earth,  227; 
Peregriuus  on,  176;  St.  Augustine 
on,  87. 

Inductive  method,  beginning  of,  38; 
compared  with  deductive,  356; 
Gilbert's  use  of  before  Bacon,  330; 
Nichol's  definition  of,  330. 

Innocent,  Bishop,  566. 

Insulation,  first  use  of  term,  482; 
Gilbert  on,  308. 

Insulators,  solid,  used  by  Dufay, 
482. 

Inunction,  130. 

Invisible  College,  404. 

Ion  of  Plato,  24. 

lolinus  on  lychnites,  42. 

Iron,  acquired  magnetism  of,  289; 
age,  12,  20,  21 ;  Aztec  and  Peruvian 
ignorance  of,  21  ;  -clad  ships, 
Norse,  98,  112;  decay  of,  in 
Egyptian  soil,  28;  -filings  in  mag. 
field,  50,  352,  412;  food  for  mag- 
net, 238;  Hebrew  knowledge  of, 
29 ;  in  ancient  China,  73 ;  in 
ancient  Egypt,  28,  58;  mag. 
screening  effect  of,  238 ;  mag. 
separation  of,  159;  mag.  suspen- 
sion of,  45;  mentioned  by  Homer, 
21  ;  by  Hesiod,  21 ;  miners  in 
Samothrace,  23;  mines,  ancient, 
22,  27;  natural  state  of,  20;  -ore, 
Gilbert  on,  287;  Greek  deposits 
of,  25 ;  workers,  the  first,  22 ; 
working  by  Finns,  138. 

Irving,  W.,  on  Columbus,  201. 

Israelites  as  iron  workers,  28. 

Italy,  learning  in  in  i7th  cent'y, 
342. 


INDEX. 


605 


J. 

Jade  traffic  in  China,  67. 
Japan,  first  Chinese  voyages  to,  78; 

south-pointing  carts  first  used  in, 

81. 
Jefferson,  Thomas,  exp'ts  on  heat, 

389. 

Jeroboam,  golden  calves  of,  29. 

Jesuits  and  Sarpi,  228-9. 

Jet,  43,  126,  369. 

Jews,  mag.  knowledge  of,  29. 

John  of  London,  162. 

Jonson,  Ben,  refers  to  magnetism, 
368;  to  protection  against  thun- 
der, 509. 

Josephus,  on  protection  of  temple 
from  lightning,  565. 

Junks,  Chinese,  77-78. 

K. 

Kalevala,  the,  138. 

Kepler,  John,  354. 

Kinnersley,  Ebenezer,  540;  elec. 
lectures  of,  585;  exp'ts  on  Leyden 
jar,  556;  invents  magic,  picture, 
elec.  jack  and  elec.  motor,  560; 
re-discovers  vitreous  and  resinous 
elec'y,  586. 

Kircher,  Athanasins,  condemns  Gil- 
bert's theories,  366;  criticizes  Gil- 
bert and  Kepler,  355;  genesis  of 
Solan  goose,  365;  Hebrew  use  of 
magnet,  29;  in  vents  words  "mag- 
netism" and  "electro  magnet- 
ism," 365;  works,  365. 

Kite  experiment,  Franklin's,  590. 

Kleist,  Dean  von,  discovery  of  Ley- 
den  jar,  512.  * 

Kouopho,  89;  and  Gilbert,  311;  on 
amber  attraction,  74. 

Kratzenstein,  Christian  Gottlieb, 
5°2. 

Kriiger,  Johann  Gottlob,  501;  ob- 
serves bleaching  effect  of  ozone, 
508;  Von  Kleist  describes  Ley  den 
jar  to  him,  513. 

L. 

Laertius,  Diogenes,  34,  35. 

La  Hire,  De,  on  mercurial  light,  456. 

Lake  dwellings,  amber  in,  n. 

Lange,  elec'y  for  curative  use,  503. 

Lapis  lyncurius,  41. 

Lapis  Solaris,  454. 

Lapps  and  Finns,  137. 

Latini,  Bruuetto,  162. 


Leakage,  magnetic,  Descartes  on, 
361. 

Learning,  in  England  and  Italy 
contrasted,  341. 

Legends  of  magnet,  219. 

Leibnitz  on  loss  of  Galileo's  mag- 
net, 349. 

Lemonnier,  Louis  G. ,  530. 

Leonardus  on  black  amber  aii'l 
lyncurium,  42,  43. 

Leopoldine  Society,  490. 

Leyden  Jar,  Bevis'  improvements 
in,  534,  555;  described  by  Muss- 
chenbroeck  to  Reaumur,  517;  dis- 
covered by  Von  Kleist,  512;  first 
elec.  circuit  recognized  in,  525; 
Franklin's  exp'ts  on,  545,  558; 
Gralath's  exp'ts  on,  522;  improved 
by  Watson,  554,  555;  in  battery, 
523;  invention  of  ascribed  to  Cu- 
naeus,  521;  origin  of  name,  522; 
Watson's  theory  of,  534. 

Library  Company  of  Philadelphia, 
538. 

Light,  electric,  Bernouilli  on,  455; 
compared  to  lightning,  459,  469; 
Dufay  finds  identical  with  fire, 
485  ;  Grummert  utilizes,  508 ; 
Guericke  discovers,  402;  Hauks- 
bee's  luminous  fountain,  459 ; 
Hausen  differentiates  spark,  brush 
and  glow,  494;  in  vacuum,  460; 
Ludolff  on,  497;  Nollet's  exp'ts 
on,  527;  Picard  observes  in  ba- 
rometer, 453. 

Light,  Milton  on  magnetic  nature 
of,  438;  theories  of  Hooke,  Des- 
cartes, Newton  and  Young,  431. 

Light  magnet,  the,  455. 

Lightning,  and  electricity,  identity 
of,  Franklin  on,  580;  Freke,  571; 
Gray,  486;  Hauksbee,  459;  Nollet, 
573;  Wall,  469;  Winkler,  572; 
Cardan  on,  568 ;  compared  to 
powder  explosion,  570;  deaths  by, 
568;  Franklin's  early  views  on, 
580;  Lester  on,  575;  Shakespeare 
on,  569;  Wallis  on,  570. 

Lightning  protection,  accidental, 
564;  ancient  suggestions  of,  565; 
Ben  Jonson's  reference  to,  569; 
Franklin  on,  576,  582;  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  on,  592. 

Lightning  rod,  denounced  by  Nol- 
let, 593;  erected  by  D' Alibard  and 
De  Lor,  588,  589;  Etruscan  knowl- 
edge of,  566;  Franklin's  des'n  of, 
582. 


6o6 


INDEX. 


Ligure  or  ligurian  stone,  42 . 

Lilly  of  compass,  60. 

Lincurius,  42. 

Lines  of  force  (see  Field  of  Force\ 
Descartes  on,  359;  Hauksbee  on, 
467. 

Lines  of  magnetic  direction  ex'd  by 
R.  Society,  412. 

Lines  of  no  variation,  world  divided 
on,  204. 

Lister,  Dr.,  on  lightning,  575. 

Livio  Sanuto  on  mag.  rocks,  204. 

Locke,  defines  heat  as  motion,  417. 

Lodestone,  (see  Magnet),  and  Greek 
phil'y,  33;  Albertus  Magnus  on, 
308 ;  Chinese  worship  of,  80 ; 
Dioscorides  and  Galen  on,  92 ; 
disc'y  of,  after  iron,  20;  Egyptian 
knowledge  of,  58;  Egyptian  name 
for,  28;  field  of  force  about,  48; 
first  Chinese  knowledge  of,  72; 
first  mention  of  attractive  prop- 
erty, 24;  Gilbert's  armed,  288; 
Gilbert's  terrella,  277;  Gilbert's 
theory  of  generation  of,  287 ; 
Greek  mystery  of,  22;  Israelite 
use  of,  29;  Lady,  in  Jonson's  play, 
368;  legend  of  disc'y  of,  19;  nature 
of,  19;  Patristic  writings  refer  to, 
90;  polarity  of,  127;  prehistoric 
knowledge  of,  20,  63,  83;  repulsion 
by,  49;  rings  as  amulets,  25;  St. 
Augustine  on,  87. 

Lor  De,   exp'ts  on  lightning,  588- 

589- 

Louis  XIV.,  endows  Royal  Acad- 
emy, 450 ;  physical  science  at 
court  of,  451. 

Louvois,  dealings  with  Royal  Acad- 
emy, 451. 

Lucau,  suggestion  of  lightning  pro- 
tection, 565. 

Lucera,  siege  of,  165. 

Lucian,  amber  mentioned  by,  16. 

Lucretius,  on  Bronze  age,  20;  mag. 
theory  of,  48;  on  derivation  of 
word  "magnet,"  25;  on  filings  in 
mag.  field,  50;  on  jumping  rings, 
49;  on  mag.  field,  48;  on  "Nature 
of  Things,"  47;  on  Samothracian 
rings,  24;  on  vibrating  armature, 

49- 
Ludolff,    ignites   spirits    by   elec'y, 

496;  shows  mercury  light  to  be 

electric,  497. 
Lully,  Raymond,  190. 
Lychinus,  42. 
Lychnites,  42. 


Lykeum,  Aristotle's,  38. 
Lyncei,  Academy  of,  342. 
Lyncis,  42. 
Lyncuriuin,  41. 
Lyngurius,  42. 
Lynx  stone,  41. 

M. 

Magdeburg  experiment,  385. 

Magellan,  voyage  of,  206. 

Magic,  Finn,  138;  rise  of,  95. 

Magnesia,  foundation  of,  26. 

Magnesians,  25. 

Magnet,  (see  Lodestone),  Albertus 
Magnus  on,  158;  artificial,  made 
by  Sellers,  446;  Bacon's  treatise 
on,  324;  compound,  290;  de 
Beauvaison,  158;  Dioscorides  and 
Galen  on,  92;  Cardan  on,  249; 
field  of  force  of,  shown  by  Pere- 
grinus,  208;  flesh,  159;  Galileo 
on,  345;  Gilbert  regards  earth  as, 
276;  known  in  early  Britain,  114; 
Latini  on,  162;  light,  455;  Lu- 
cretius on  derivation  of  name,  25; 
medical  uses  of  the,  255;  myths 
of  the,  219;  Paracelsus'  curative 
use  of,  222;  Patristic  writings  on, 
90;  Peregrinus  on  selection  of, 
169;  on  testing,  170;  on  finding 
poles,  170;  Porta  on  measuring 
strength  of,  238;  prehistoric 
knowledge  of,  83;  Roger  Bacon 
on,  161;  so  called  by  Euripides, 
24;  St.  Augustine  on,  87;  wor- 
shipped by  Chinese,  80. 

Magnetes,  tribe  of,  26. 

Magnetic,  cure  for  wounds,  372; 
healing,  Browne  on,  381;  inter- 
communication, 382;  Lady,  Jon- 
son's  play  of,  368;  Nuntii,  373; 
supposed  place  of  pole,  204 ; 
Rocks,  313;  legends  of,  367;  Fra- 
castorio  on,  204;  Livio  Sanuto  on, 
204;  Maurolycus  on,  204;  Oviedo 
on,  204;  Ptolemy  on,  203;  satura- 
tion, 290;  spectrum,  Cabaeus  on, 
353;  Descartes  on,  362;  Wren  on, 
412;  statesman,  Digges  so-called, 
339;  synonymous  with  Herculean, 
27. 

Magnetical  Animadversions,  Rid- 
ley's, 339. 

Magnetism,  and  electricity  linked 
by  Newton  with  gravity,  4-9; 
animal,  372;  at  end  of  1 7th  cent'y, 
448;  by  earth  induction,  289;  Des- 
cartes on,  361;  destruction  of,  by 


INDEX. 


607 


fire,  227;  Digbyon,  377;  Greene's 
references  to,  369  ;  induced  by 
earth,  227;  Jewish  knowledge  of, 
29;  mineral,  372;  Michell  on 
law  of,  236;  Peregrinus  on  law 
cf,  173;  Porta  on  law  of,  235; 
Sarpi  on,  226;  Shakespeare  on, 
370;  term  first  used  by  Kircher, 

365. 
Magnetite,    in   ancient    China,    73; 

nature  of,  19. 
Magnetization,   Gilbert  on,  289;  of 

compass  needle,   130;  of  iron  in 

air,  289. 

Magnetizers,  the,  372. 
Magnetometer,  Gilbert's,  312. 
Magnetotherapy,  24. 
Mahomet's  coffin,  myth  of,  46. 
Maimonides,  29. 

Manetho,  on  magnet  in  Bgypt,  28. 
Marbodeus,  42;  on  jet,  43. 
Marcellus  Enipiricus  ou  lodestone, 

93- 

Marco  Polo,  189. 

Mariner's  compass,  see  Compass. 

Mather,  Rev.  Cotton,  463. 

Matter,  Aristotelian,  276,  282. 

Matthiolus,  garlic  theory  of,  281. 

Maundevile  on  magnetic  rocks,  99. 

Maurolycus  on  magnetic  rocks,  204. 

Mausoleus,  46. 

Measuring  instrument,  first  elec- 
trical, 523. 

Medicine,  first  application  of  elec'y 
to,  501-502. 

Melancthon  on  magnet,  143. 

Mercurial  phosphorus,  455,  490. 

Mercury   light,    obs'd    by    Picard, 

453- 

Mersenne,  378. 
Meteorites  as  talisman,  57. 
Meteorologia,  Gilbert's,  329. 
Michell,  law  of  magnetism,  236. 
Miles,    Dr.,  on   sparkling  persons, 

503. 
Milesian     doctrine,     Theophrastus 

dissents     from,     41;     philosophy 

(see  Thales). 

Milton,   reference  to  sun's  "mag- 
netic beam,"  438. 
Monconys,  Balthasar,  388. 
Mongols,  59,  62,  83. 
Monmor,  De,  378. 
Moon,  mag.  effect  of  earth  on,  292; 

mapped  by  Gilbert,  329. 
Mortimer,   Dr.  Cromwell,   on  elec. 

fire,  505. 
Motor,  germ  of  electric,  49;  Gordon 


invents  electric,  507;  Kinners- 
ley's  electric,  560;  Peregriuus' 
magnetic,  167,  177,  182. 

Mountains,  magnetic,  96  et  seq. 

Musschenbrceck,  Peter  V.,  517. 

Mycenae,  amber  at,  15. 

Mysticism,  94. 

Mythology,  Greek,  31. 

N. 

Nature,  Aristotelian  use  of  term, 
284. 

Navigation,  ancient  Arab,  103; 
Chinese,  77;  Egyptian,  58;  Etrus- 
can, 59;  Greek,  54;  Norse,  112; 
Phoenician,  15,  55;  Solomon's, 

55; 

Navigator's  supply,  Barlowe's,  336. 

Necho,  voyages  of,  58. 

Neckam,  Alexander,  120;  and  Pere- 
grinus compared,  174. 

Newton,  Isaac,  definition  of  ether, 
511;  disc'y  of  univ'l  gravitation, 
435;  elec.  exp'ts,  445;  finds  field 
of  force  in  intervening  medium, 
440;  laws  of  motion,  439;  on  lines 
of  force,  442;  on  luminous  bodies, 
458;  theory  compared  with  Gil- 
bert's, 435. 

Nicander,  legend  of  Magnes,  19. 

Nichol,  Prof.,  on  inductive  method, 
330. 

Nickel-in-slot  machine,  ancient,  87. 

Nollet,  Jean  Antoine,  516;  ampli- 
fies elec.  theory,  554;  denounces 
lightning-rods,  593;  exp'ts  on 
light,  vegetables  and  animals, 
527;  on  identity  of  elec'y  and 
lightning,  573. 

Nomads,  the,  61. 

Non-conductors,  electrics  become, 
482. 

Non-electrics,  become  conductors, 
482;  Gilbert's  list  of,  305. 

Norman,  Robert,  211,  213. 

Normans,  conquest  by,  116. 

Norse,  legends  of  mag.  rocks,  99. 

Northmen,  the,  112. 

Nova  Philosophia,  Gilbert's,  318. 

Novum  Organum,  criticisms  of  Gil- 
bert in  the,  328. 

o. 

Odyssey,     supposed     reference    to 

compass  in,  54. 
(Eneus  of  Euripides,  24. 
Ophir,  voyages  to,  55. 


6o8 


INDEX. 


Orb  of  coition,  Gilbert's,  302. 

Orb  of  virtue,  Gilbert's,  272-291. 

Orpheus,  23. 

Orphic  mysteries,  23. 

Otiosi,  Porta's  society  of  the,  231. 

Otocousticon,  430. 

Oviedo  on  mag.  rocks,  204. 

Owen,  epigram  on  Gilbert,  341. 

Ozone,    bleaching   effect    obs'd   by 

Kriiger,  508;  odor  obs'd  by  Boyle, 

415;  by  Hauseii,  494. 

P. 

Panaceas,  magnetic,  25. 
Paracelsus,  220;  imitated  by  Rosi- 

crucians,  372. 
Paris,  Matthew,  157. 
Paschal,  378. 
Peiresc,  on  condition  of  England, 

334- 
Penn,    William,    corresponds    with 

Boyle,  425. 

Pensieri  of  Fra  Paolo,  226. 
Pennsylvania  Gazette,  Kinnersley's 

adv't  in,  585. 
Pepys,   account  of  R.  Society,  407; 

receives  terrella,  407. 
Peregrinus,  Peter,  165;  andNeckam 

compared,  174;  copied  by  Porta, 
.234;  discoveries  of,   184;  field  of 

force   revealed    by,    207;    Gilbert 

refers  to,  279;  theories   of,   com- 
pared with  those  of  Gilbert,  278. 
Petty,  Sir  W.,  404. 
Phaeton,  legend  of,  16. 
Philippe  de  Thaun,  Bestiary  of,  119. 
Philosophers,  Lsertius'  lives  of,  34. 
Philosophy,  at  time  of  Socrates,  37; 

beginning    of,    33;     cosmical    in 

middle  ages,    163;  of  Paracelsus, 

220;  of  Thales,  33;  rise  of  Greek, 

44;  scholastic,  118. 
Phoenicians,  compass  attributed  to, 

54;    knowledge    of    magnet,    56; 

voyages  for  amber,   15;  voyages 

in,  697  B.  C.,  55- 
Phonograph,      foreshadowed       by 

Hooke,  429. 
Phoronid,  the,  22. 
Phosphorus,  454;  mercurial,  455. 
Phrygia,  first  iron  miners  from,  22. 
Physicians,     mag.    knowledge    of 

English,  256. 
Physiological     Remains,     Bacon's, 

.324- 
Picard,  Jean,   observes    barometer 

KgK  453. 
Pirorganon,  Winkler's,  506. 


Plato,  on  amber  attraction,  35-36;  on 
lodestone  attraction,  24;  on  con- 
nection of  lodestoue  and  amber, 
37- 

Pliny,  denounces  Lyngurian  stone 
as  myth,  42;  legend  of  amber 
attraction,  17;  of  Magnes,  19;  on 
foundation  of  Magnesia,  26;  on 
gagates,  43;  on  Heracleau  stone, 
27;  on  lodestone  rings,  25;  on 
lodestone  roof,  44;  on  magnetic 
repulsion,  51. 

Plutarch,  on  amber  attraction,  50; 
on  mag.  repulsion,  51;  on  Ma- 
netho,  28. 

Plus  and  minus  electrification,  543. 

Po,  amber  on  shores  of,  17. 

Points,  discharging  effect  of,  obs'd 
by  Franklin,  541;  elec.  effect  of, 
obs'd  by  Guericke,  398. 

Polarity,  electrical,  obs'd  by  Guer- 
icke, 398;  magnetic,  first  sugges- 
tion of,  127;  magnetic,  supposed 
Egyptian  knowledge  of,  58;  mag- 
netic, supposed  Etruscan  knowl- 
edge of,  62;  of  lodestone,  19; 
Peregrinus  on  reversal  of,  176; 
prehistoric  knowledge  of,  20. 

Pole,  magnetic,  supposed  places  of, 
204;  sons  of  the,  164. 

Poles,  ancient  ideas  of  heavenly, 
164;  confusion  of  magnet  and 
earth's,  158;  Gilbert's  comparison 
of  the,  277. 

Porta,  John  Baptista,  230;  first  no- 
tion of  telegraph,  239;  Gilbert's 
attitude  toward,  280;  indebted- 
ness of,  to  Peregrinus,  234;  on 
magnetic  sphere  of  virtue,  237; 
relations  with  Sarpi,  232. 

Portuguese  voyages,  194. 

Power,  confutation  of  Gran  dam  i- 
cus,  405. 

Priestley,  Dr.,  on  powerful  elec. 
discharges,  505. 

Prima  Forma  of  Aristotle,  283. 

Prime  conductor,  Bose  invents,  496. 

Primum  Mobile,  163. 

Principia,  Descartes',  365. 

Printing,  invention  of,  193. 

Prolusiones  Academicae  of  Strada, 

383- 

Prometheus,  legend  of,  565. 
Pseudodoxia   epideuiica,   Browne's, 

380. 

Ptolemy  on  magnetic  rocks,  203,  380. 
Puritans,    opposition     to     physical 

science,  371. 


INDEX. 


609 


Pyramid,  iron  in  great,  28;  orienta- 
tion of,  57. 

Q- 

Quakers,  refuse  to  defend  Phila, 
546. 

Queen  Elizabeth,  relations  to  Gil- 
bert, 262-4. 

Quelmalz,  elec.  theory  of,  503. 

R. 

Races,  peculiarities  of,  61. 
Reaumur,  Musschenbrceck's  letter 

to,  517. 
Repulsion,  electric, obs'd by  Cabaeus, 

351;  Guericke   on,   397;  laws   of, 

485;  magnetic,  48,  51,  285. 
Resinous  electricity,  Dufay  on,  484. 
Resistance,  363. 

Respective  point,  Norman's,  216. 
Rhea,  22. 

Rhodes,  mag.  suspension  at,  46. 
Ridley,  Mark,  338. 
Ridotti,  Italian,  342. 
Rings,  Samothracian,  see  Samothra- 

cian  rings. 
Roberval,  378. 
Rocks,  magnetic,  96. 
Rolli,  on  spontaneous  combustion, 

503,  504- 

Rose  of  the  winds,  60,  187,  188,  191. 

Rosicrucians,  the,  371. 

Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  foun- 
dation of,  450;  reorganized  by  de 
Pon  char  train,  452. 

Royal  Society,  Berlin,  founded  by 
Frederick  I.,  490. 

Royal  Society,  English,  early  exp'ts 
of,  410;  first  notice  of  elec'y,  402. 
foundation  of,  406;  influence  on 
newphil'y,  409;  insists  on  original 
research,  411;  its  opponents,  413; 
rejects  Franklin's  papers,  583; 
repeats  Newton's  exp'ts,  445. 

Ruffinus,  on  magnet,  92;  magnetic 
suspension,  45. 

Runes,  Finn,  138. 

Rupert,  Prince,  inventions  of,  406. 

S. 

Sagredo,  Gian  Francesco,  342-343; 
observes  time  changes  in  varia- 
tion, 367. 

Samothrace,  Cabiri  in,  23. 

Samothracian  rings,  23,  47,  87. 

Sanconiathon,  56. 

Saracens  in  Spain,  108. 

39 


Sarpi,  Fra  Paolo,  224;  and  Porta, 
232;  writes  to  Galileo  about  Gil- 
bert, 343. 

Saturation,  magnetic,  290. 

Sauveur,  invents  gambling  system', 

451- 

Scaliger,  on  Laertms,  35;  on  Gil- 
bert, 341. 

Schilling,  J.  J.,  exp'ts  of,  491. 

Scholastic  philosophy,  118. 

Schott,  Gasper,  describes  Guericke 's 
air-pump,  414. 

Schwenter,  Daniel,  compass  tele- 
graph, 382. 

Sellers,  produces  artificial  magnets, 
446. 

Semites,  characteristics  of,  61. 

Septuagint,  ligure  disc'd  in,  42. 

Serapis,  magnetic  suspension  in 
temple  of,  45,  92. 

Series,  connection  of  elec.  gener- 
ators in,  557. 

Sewall,  Madam,  sparkling  frock  of, 

425- 

S'Gravesande,  W.  J.,  488,  516. 

Shakespeare,  William,  on  nature 
of  lightning,  569;  on  St.  Elmo's 
fire,  568;  references  to  magnetism, 
370. 

Shoo  King,  the,  66. 

Short  circuiting,  Descartes  on,  361. 

Siderites,  25. 

Silk,  filament  suspension,  312;  Gil- 
bert's use  of,  for  insulation,  308; 
Gray's  use  of,  for  insulation,  475. 

Silver,  attraction  of,  by  lodestone, 
281. 

Similitudes,  Neckam  on,  123. 

Simpson,  Dr.,  on  elec.  sparkling, 
503. 

Sing,  Philip,  540-544. 

Siphon  recorder,  principle  of,  sug- 
gested, 499. 

Societies,  learned,  in  France,  378; 
names  of  Italian,  232. 

Society,  English  Scientific  in  1660, 
404;  Royal— See  Royal  Society. 

Socrates,  philosophy  in  time  of,  37. 

Solomon,  voyages  of,  55. 

Somers,  Lord,  463. 

Sorcery,  Finn,  138. 

So-soung  on  mag.  rocks,  98. 

Soul  in  lodestone,  Thales  on,  33. 

Sound  due  to  electrification,  402. 

South-pointing  carts — See  Carts, 
south-pointing. 

Spain,  compass  in  mediaeval,  in; 
in  time  of  Saracens,  107. 


6io 


INDEX. 


Spark,  electric,  discovered,  431,  494. 

Sparkling  phenomena  of  human 
body  and  apparel,  503,  504. 

Speaking  trumpet,  inv'n  of,  430. 

Spence,  Dr.,  elec.  exp'ts  of,  538. 

Spider,  Franklin's  elec.,  545. 

Spindle,  ancient  use  of  amber  as,  18. 

Spontaneous  combustion,  503. 

Sprat,  T. ,  on  learning  in  Elizabethan 
age,  334;  on  Royal  Society  exp'ts, 
412. 

St.  Aldhelm  on  magnet,  115. 

St.  Amand,  discoveries  of,  192. 

St.  Ambrose  on  attraction,  90;  mag. 
mountains,  98. 

St.  Augustine  on  mag.  attraction, 
87;  on  mag.  suspension,  45;  dis- 
tinguishes between  mag.  and  elec. 
effects,  89. 

St.  Brandaen,  journey  of,  99. 

St.  Elmo's  fire,  567. 

St.  Gregory  Nazianzenus  on  attrac- 
tion, 90. 

St.  Gregory  Nyssenus  on  magnet,  90. 

St.  Isidore,  Etymologies  of,  91;  on 
magnet,  91;  on  mag.  suspension, 

45- 
St.  Jerome  on  attraction  of  magnet 

and  amber,  90. 
St.  Paul's,    Bacon's   exp't  at,   324; 

Gray  proposes  exp't  at,  474. 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  on  Form,  283; 

on   lightning  protection,  592;  on 

magnetic  attraction,  281. 
Statue,    suspended   by   magnetism, 

45- 

Steam  engine,  inv'n  of,  by  Hero,  44. 

Stone  of  Heraclea,  27. 

Stones,  Theophrastus'  hist'y  of,  39. 

Strada,  Prolusiones  of,  383. 

Stubbe  attacks  R.  Society,  41 V 

Stukely,  Dr.,  notices  Franklin's 
theories,  583. 

Sun,  name  of  amber  derived  from 
that  of,  1 6. 

Suspension,  magnetic,  45. 

Swift,  Dean,  parodies  Boyle,  424. 

Sympathy  and  Antipathy,  124. 

Syrian  women,  observe  amber  at- 
traction, 17. 

T. 

Taisnier,  John,  Gilbert  on,  280;  on 
mag.  rocks,  101;  plagiarisms  of, 

n,192' 
Tartars,  59. 

Tchoii  dynasty  in  China,  68. 
Telegraph,  beginnings  of,  239,  400; 


Browne's  exp'ts  on,  386;  mag.  de- 
scribed by  Strada,  383;  by  Addi- 
son,  Akenside,  Cabaeus,  Galileo, 
Hakewill,  384,  385;  disputed  by 
de  Boodt,  383;  predictions  of,  by 
Bealand  Glanvil,  387;  Schwenter's 
compass,  382. 

Temple,  alleged  lightning  protec- 
tion of,  564. 

Terrella,  Gilbert's  lodestone,  277; 
Guericke's  elec.,  395  ;  sent  to 
Pepys,  407. 

Tertullian  on  magnet,  90. 

Thales  of  Miletus,  32;  contrasted 
with  Hero,  44;  Grote  on  phil'y  of, 
37;  L,aertiuson,  34;  Theophrastus 
differs  from,  41. 

Theamedes,  5  i. 

Theodoritus  on  magnet,  90. 

Theophrastus,  38  et  seq. 

Thermometer,  elec.,  515. 

Thevenot,  378. 

Timaeus  of  Locri,  37;  Plato's,  35,  36. 

Timochares.  44. 

Tourmaline,  41. 

Torpedo,  shock  of,  noted  by  Bacon, 
401. 

Tubal  Cain,  29. 

Turanian  family,  61. 

Typhon,  iron  called  bone  of,  28. 

u. 

Ugric  family,  61. 
Umbrians,  59. 

University  of  Alexandria,  44. 
Universities,    English    in    time   of 
James  I.,  333. 

V. 

Vacuum,  amber  attraction  due  to, 
50;  Hauksbee's  light  in,  460. 

Van  Drebbel,  see  Drebbel. 

Van  Helmont,  see  Helmont. 

Van  Musschenbroack,  see  Mus- 
schenbrceck. 

Variation  of  compass,  196;  alleged 
record  of,  by  Andrea  Blanco,  197; 
Burrowes,  Bond,  Gellibrand  and 
Gunter  on,  446;  discovered  by 
Chinese,  76;  discovered  by  Colum- 
bus, 200;  Gilbert's  errors  as  to, 
273;  Halley  on,  447;  line  of  no, 
200;  time  changes  in,  obs'd  by 
Sagredo,  367. 

Vasco  da  Gama,  voyages  of,  105, 
205. 

Vault,  lodestone,  45. 


INDEX. 


Vegetables,  electrifying,  Nollet's 
exp'ts  on,  527. 

Vending  machine  in  Egyptian 
temples,  87. 

Venice  and  Genoa,  rivalry  of,  193. 

Versorium,  Gilbert's,  303. 

Vesalius,  262. 

Vincent  de  Beauvais,  on  mag.  rocks, 
101. 

Virtue,  Gilbert  on,  272;  Guericke's 
hypotheses  of,  392;  Neckam  on 
attractive,  125;  Peregrinus  on 
magnetic,  177;  Porta  on  magnetic, 
235- 

Vitreous  electricity,  Dufay  on,  484. 

Vitry,  Cardinal  de,  on  compass,  154. 

Voltaire  on  Cartesian  and  Newton- 
ian theories,  509. 

Von  Guericke,  Otto,  see  Guericke. 

Von  Kleist,  see  Kleist. 

Vortex  theory,  Descartes,  48,  357; 
Plutarch  on,  51. 

w. 

Wall,  Dr.,  on  resemblance  of  elec'y 

and  lightning,  469. 
Wallis, John, 404;  Dr.,  on  lightning, 

57°- 

Ward,  Bishop,  404. 

Water  and  earth  circuit,  Watson's, 
550;  circuit,  Lemonniers',  532; 
electrification  of  running,  489- 
499;  soul  of  Thales,  34. 

Watson,  Dr.  Wm.,  508;  dealings 
with  Franklin's  theory,  552;  with 
Lemonnier's  theory,  548  ;  de- 
termines velocity  of  elec'y  to  be 
instantaneous,  551  ;  discovers 


water  and  earth  circuit,  550;  es- 
tablishes elec.  circuits  across 
Thames  and  New  rivers,  549;  ex- 
poses Bose's  beatification,  499; 
fires  spirits  by  elec'y,  508;  ignites 
gas  by  elec'y,  508;  Leyden  jar 
exp'ts,  532,  533,  554;  makes  cir- 
cuit 12,276  ft.  long,  555;  pro- 
visional theory  of  elec'y,  51;  pub- 
lishes papers,  533;  urges  elec. 
research,  539. 

Wheler,  Granvile,  exp'ts  with  Gray, 
474- 

William  the  Clerk,  poems  of,  149. 

Wilkins,  Bishop,  404,  430,  436. 

Wilson,  Benjamin,  elec.  theory  of, 

554- 

Winkler,  Johann  Heinrich,  506; 
attempts  to  measure  speed  of 
elec'y,  506;  elec.  machine,  506; 
identity  of  lightning  and  elec'y, 
572;  Leyden  jar  exp'ts,  515,  524; 
theories  of  elec'y,  507,  511;  Von 
Kleist  describes  Leyden  jar  to 
him,  513. 

Winthrop,  John,  424. 

Wisbuy,  134,  146;  laws  of,  136. 

Wright,  Edward,  265,  274,  315,  335. 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  411. 

Worship  of  nature,  Greek,  31. 

X. 

Xenophanes  and  Xenomanes,  Ba- 
con's comparison  of  Gilbert  to, 
328. 

z. 

Zoroaster,  legend  of,  565. 


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